Harry Potter and the Burning Hells
by CreatorZorah
Summary: Harry and Tracey find themselves in a different world, where they encounter powerful sorcerers, great warriors and hordes of undead. It is the world where a danger can await you everywhere, where the great demons roam free. Eventually HP/TD. M for blood and violence.
1. Chapter 1: Sanctuary

_**Author's Notes:**_

_****_You don't have to know anything about the Diabloverse. If you find yourself confused by something, just PM me and I'll try to correct confusing parts of text.

_**Summary.**_

_During the sixth year Harry earns himself a detention and has to clean an old dusty room in the dungeons. He has, however, an unexpected company. Tracey Davis has to serve the detention as well. Together they find a mysterious scroll that opens a portal and drags them to another world._

**_Disclaimer._**

_I do not own Harry Potter and characters of the series. Everything belongs to J.K. Rowling. Neither do I own Diablo and its world, characters and anything else. These belong to Blizzard Entertainment. I don't write it for profit and don't make any money with it._

**_Rating._**

_I'll start with T, but I know that it can get quite bloody, so be warned that I may change the rating later._

* * *

**HARRY POTTER AND THE BURNING HELLS  
**

**by CreatorZorah**

**Chapter 1: Sanctuary**

"Clean this room. No magic is allowed," Filch said. "I'll come back later to see if you're doing your work properly. Understood?"

"Yes," both Harry and Tracey answered in a very displeased tone.

"Come, Mrs. Norris," the caretaker said, heading out of the dungeons.

Tracey glanced at Harry and said, "Potter."

"Davis," Harry said.

"Get to the work," she said sitting down on a crate.

"I won't work while you're doing nothing!" he exclaimed.

"Great! We'll get another detention when the Squib comes back."

Harry glared at the redhead and said, "I don't care."

"Well, I don't care either," she said taking a book out of her robes to read.

Seeing that the girl really didn't move to clean the room, he growled, "Fine." With that he sat down on another crate and took his copy of Advanced Potion-Making. Unfortunately the old crate, he chose, couldn't bear the weight and collapsed noisily. Harry felld down and scowled as Tracey burst out laughing.

"You should become a clown, Potter."

"Oh, shut up, Davis," he said, dusting himself off.

"What? You're good at making people laugh," she mocked.

"Ha-ha," Harry uttered grimacing at her.

As he started to study contents of the crate he saw a few old rusty swords, some kind of medieval leather armor, a few books, scrolls, some other things and... the staff. It was one and a half meter long, made of some dark wood. There was a large green crystal on the top of the staff and it was... glowing? "What for Merlin's sake is this?" he mumbled and took the staff in his hands feeling surge of magic from it. It felt like a wand, but... so powerful!

"Merlin's pants, Potter," Tracey gasped jumping of the crate and rushing to him. "Where did you find it?"

"It was in the crate."

"It's a sorcerer's staff," she said, examining it. "These weren't seen for three thousand years! How did it get into this bloody crate?"

"No idea. What's so important about the staff?"

"Do you read books, Potter?" she asked. "The last sorcerer was seen three thousand years ago. It's thought to be a legend. I thought it was one until now too."

"Well, aren't we sorcerers too?"

"Bloody hell, no! We can be, but we aren't. We use words like 'sorcery', but we have no idea what it really is. Unlike us, sorcerers knew secrets of magic, they knew how it works. They didn't need wands or staves to do magic. If the legends are right, then there were only three of them. and they never taught anyone before vanishing without a trace."

"So, they're practically more powerful than us?" Harry asked forgetting that he was speaking to a Slytherin.

"I have no idea. We can be powerful in our own way. But the things they did according to legends are... disturbing," she said and took a book in her hand, opening it. "It's Greek," she said.

"You know Greek?" Harry asked in surprise.

"Yes, Potter. A lot of old manuscripts are written in Greek," Tracey explained, reading the book at the same time. "It's amazing! These are basics of sorcery!" She opened the other two books. "All this is about sorcery!" Tracey exclaimed. "Potter, give me the bag," she said pointing at some plain leather bag.

"Why?"

"We should hide all this, dumbarse. Or you wish to hand it over to the Squib?"

"Eh... you're right," Harry said and handed her the bag.

Harry helped her to gather all small items and stuff them into the bag, before Tracey cast the Notice-Me-Not charm on it. He kept the staff in his hand, however, not trusting the redhead with obviously powerful weapon.

Tracey glanced at him and asked, "How do you plan to explain the staff to Filch?"

Harry sighed. "I'll just hide it. Will you place it under the Notice-Me-Not charm for me?"

"Don't tell me you don't know it, Potter," she said stunned by his question.

"I don't. I'm good at fighting, not trickery."

"Right." Tracey nodded and sent Reductos at other crates. Sadly, they turned out to be empty. She shrugged and took a scroll out of the bag. "Curious, what's inside," she muttered, opening it.

That's when everything went to hell. A blue archway appeared out of nowhere. It was glowing with the light intently. Tracey was too close to it and the portal began to suck her in. "Potter, help me!" she screamed in panic. Harry rushed to the redhead and grabbed her at waist, but it didn't help, mere moments later they both, the bag and the staff were sucked in. Harry was prepared to die, but to his surprise after a second of weird feelings he slammed onto the cold stone floor with Tracey on top of him.

"Are you alright?" he asked.

"What?" she asked opening her eyes. "Where are we?"

"I have no idea and I don't see a bloody thing. Would you please... well," he said.

"Ah... right," she said, standing up. "**Lumos Maxima!**"

"Davis! Give me a warning next time," he complained.

"Do you want a next time, then?" she asked slyly.

"Where the heck are we?" he asked looking around.

"I have absolutely no idea, but I doubt it's Hogwarts," Tracey said.

"Yeah."

It was quite clear they weren't at Hogwarts. The Hogwarts didn't have halls like this, the eastern architecture of this place seemed to be a lot like pictures of Egypt he had seen. Besides he was sure, that they wouldn't find old skeletons lying around.

"Is that some kind of tomb?" he asked.

Tracey frowned and answered clearly uncomfortable with the idea, "Looks a lot like a tomb of some Ancient Egyptian wizard."

"Did that scroll portkeyed us to Egypt?"

"I doubt it. Let's try to get out of here," she suggested and used a spell to find an exit. "Magic feels different here."

"How?" he asked, taking he staff and handing over the bag to Tracey.

"Try it yourself, Potter," she said moving to the exit.

"Lumos," holding the wand in his hand. The stick glowed much more brightly than he expected. "Whoa, it's like... like I have a lot more... magic here."

"Exactly," she agreed grimly. "That bothers me a lot."

For the next few minutes Harry followed Tracey silently to the exit. It was creepy, but quite alright until they entered small square room. The redhead stepped on a stone and it went down under her foot. She squeaked in surprise, missing a bunch arrows that were launched at her by this trap. Harry, however, reacted very fast shielding them with simple, "_Protego!_"

"Bloody thanks, Potter," she said. The moment later her eyes widened and she exclaimed, "What the hell?"

Harry turned around and blanched seeing tons of skeletons approaching them. "Run!" he shouted, dragging the girl with himself.

As they advanced to the exit, skeletons on the floor were beginning to move and standing up. Some of them had weapons in their hands, others tried to grab them using hands. They didn't try to fight them for there were too many, but every now and then they had to send banishing charms at skeletons to get through the horde of undeads. The pair didn't dare to slow down, since they would be swarmed.

"There!" Tracey exclaimed breathing hard.

Horrified, they both saw that wherever the exit was, it was blocked by an solid stone plate. On reflex Harry shouted, "_Reducto_." He didn't notice that he used the staff instead of wand. The stone plate exploded like it was just pile of dust.

Tracey reacted instantly sending a silent _Wingardium Leviosa_ at the boulders that would bury the way to the safety otherwise. The moment they left the tomb she ended the spell blocking the exit for undeads and fell down on the sand looking at the sky. Harry sent an _Reducto_ at the single skeleton that managed to get through and sat down beside Tracey.

"We're safe..." Harry uttered after few minutes of silence.

"I wouldn't be so sure, Potter," Tracey said.

"Why?" he asked.

"Look at the sky."

"What's with the sky?"

"Oh hell, Potter, did you learn anything in Astronomy?"

"Wha..." His eyes widened, when he didn't find any familiar constellation. "What? How could that be possible? Where are we?"

"Beats me! Anywhere but our world."

"Give me the bag, I'll try to open another scroll," he suggested. "Perhaps it will send us back."

Tracey nodded and took another scroll out of the bag. "What if it sends us somewhere else?" she said handing over the scroll reluctantly.

"Well, we'll know it once we try," he said smiling and opened the scroll. And... nothing happened.

"I believe, we're stuck here... wherever this here is," Tracey said sighting. Then she suddenly said, "Good. We won't have to participate in that stupid war with You-Know-Who."

Harry paled again at that and exclaimed, "Oh Merlin, I have to get back!"

"Relax, Potter, you aren't the center of the universe, neither is the sun shining out of your arse. They'll handle it without you. Somehow."

"Don't you care about your friends?" he questioned angrily. "Or family?"

"Nope," she answered. "I don't have any."

Harry wanted to tell her that she's heartless, but when she heard the last sentence he stopped. Instead he said, "But I saw you talking to Malfoy, Parkinson and..."

"You saw, I guess, but does that make me friends with them? No," she said. "Did you ever heard of a wizarding family with the name Davis?"

"No," he said.

"Because there isn't one. My father was a muggle, mother a pure-blood. But they were killed by Death Eaters before you managed to defeat You-Know-Who. Not the best ancestry to be in Slytherin same year as Malfoy, Crabbe, Goyle, Nott and Parkinson. I'm hanging out with their lot because I don't want them questioning my loyalties. Now answer me, please, why should I want back if it's possible that I can live here peacefully?"

"I'm sorry, I didn't know," he said feeling foolish. "Though if the whole world is like this tomb, I doubt you'll have a peaceful life here."

"Yeah." She snorted and stood up. "Perhaps the Hogwarts is the better choice. Anyway, we have no choice and should find some town here if there are any."

"Skeletons were human," Harry noted.

"Right, hope there are living humans as well. Do you know any useful spell for such situations?"

"Not really," he answered. "You?"

"I don't know either."

"What about that spell you used to find an exit?" Harry asked.

"That's what it does. Finds an exit." She sighed. "I'll be using the Point-Me spell to avoid going around in a circle."

"Alright, let's walk north," he suggested and then shouted, "**Lumos Maxima!**"

The potency of magic in this world along with the staff made the spell very powerful. Both Harry and Tracey had to close their eyes as he sent the glowing ball to the sky. The desert became so light like it was a day. A very dark day, but still...

"That was awesome, Potter," Tracey said. "I have to get the staff like yours."

"I can't believe it either," he said looking bewildered at the effect of the spell. "Let's go."

* * *

**A/N:**

_Well, I didn't expect to write this story, but I couldn't resist the urge. The world of Diablo is rich, but kind of... stupid. At the same time I like the idea of all these demons and angels._

_So when I decided to write something, I had to choose: do I want Harry in the Diabloverse, or should I put Evils into the Potterverse? In the end, I couldn't really decide, so I chose both. Let Harry fight Evils in the Diabloverse and then get him and Evils back to the Potterverse and continue the fight there :)_

_The next question was, should I create portal for one person (Harry), or get him some friend? It would be quite boring to write about single sexy Harry, so I decided to get him some sexy girl. To make things more interesting the sexy girl has to be a Slytherin. I kind of hate Pansy and I don't want to use Daphne. So... Tracey? Yeah, the sexy and fiery redhead ( in my stories she's always a redhead) gets Harry._

_Time. I decided to give them a year in the world of Sanctuary before getting to the story of Diablo III._

_I don't know a lot about the world of Sanctuary, so beware of possible mistakes. Don't expect much of it. Right now I have only "Hermione Granger and Prince of Serpents" in my pretty head._


	2. Chapter 2: Lut Gholein

A/N: That's all I have for now. I'll update it one more time, after I publish at least 3 more chapters for "Hermione Granger and the Prince of Serpents"

Please, review. I would like to know if I should continue it later, what's good and what's bad about the story.

* * *

**HARRY POTTER AND THE BURNING HELLS  
**

**by CreatorZorah**

**Chapter 2: Lut Gholein**

"I don't like those birds," Harry said looking at scavengers flying above their heads.

"They're just birds," Tracey said dismissing his worries.

"They're scavengers. If they're flying above us, they think that we'll be a source of food."

"Ah shut up, Potter. Do something useful, conjure some water, please. It's like on a frying pan here."

"**Aguamenti!**" Harry said, letting a strong stream of water out of his staff in the air creating rain.

"Thanks, Potter," she said.

They were journeying around the desert for hours. The sun was high on the sky and they had yet to meet someone in these lands. It seemed to be an endless desert.

"Look!" Tracey exclaimed pointing with a hand to the right. "What the heck is that?"

Harry followed her hand and saw movement. It was far, but he could tell that those weren't humans. "I have a bad feeling," he said.

She nodded and they stopped to wait for these creatures. When they got nearer Harry frowned noticing weapons in hands of dozen ugly red-skinned monsters, that had horns on their heads and glowing red eyes. They were rushing at the pair and behind the group of small monsters was a huge creature that looked very similar but was much bigger and had a huge scythe in its hands.

"Bad feeling, my arse," Tracey muttered.

"Perhaps they want to speak?" Harry asked weakly.

"Yep," Tracey said as the monsters cried out and threw a few weapons at them. "They just want to play."

Harry didn't wait any longer. "**Reducto!"** he shouted killing the nearest creature.

"You have to use something better than that," Tracey noted. "**Bombarda!**"

"**Bombarda maxima!**" Harry shouted. "**Incendio!** **Glissendo!**"

That worked much better, but a few moments later they blanched as these hellish creatures they've just killed, stood up again fully healed and continued their way towards Harry and Tracey.

"It's that monster with a staff. He's bloody resurrecting them," Tracey said as they began to retreat.

"I see him," Harry said with a nod. "**Bombarda Maxima! Incendio! Deprimo! Incendio**! Kill that bastard, Davis!"

"Look out!" the redhead screamed.

He looked to his right and saw the large monster rushing at him. "**Sectumsempra!**" he shouted out having no idea what the spell would do. Fortunately the spell sliced the creature in half. There was no time to relax, however, as he continued to fight the smaller demons.

"**Reducto!**" Tracey shouted out and the beam killed the creature that had been resurrecting his comrades.

They threw their last spells, killing the rest of the mob and fell down on their knees throwing up, because the sight before them was just disgusting.

"What was that?" he asked.

"How would I know, Potter?" she snapped. "Must be the duckfaced crumple-horned snorkacks from hell."

Harry snorted shaking his head. "What's up with this world? First skeletons, now this. I hate this place already," he cursed.

"Yeah, better bloody Death Eaters than this shit," the redhead agreed looking in disgust at scavengers that settled down to eat monsters she and Harry had killed. "Let's move, they stink like mountain trolls."

And so they continued their way through the desert. They were getting hungry, but as long as they had water they could move. It was dusk when they finally reached something that gave them hope. It was a stone road. And the road had to lead somewhere. However it was late and they were tired. So they decided to make a stop.

"There is a snake there," Harry said looking at two-meter long yellow snake.

"And?" Tracey said.

"And I want to kill it. We have to eat something," he explained and sent an cutting curse at the snake severing it in half. "I think we can fry and eat it," he said.

"Oh? You can even think, what a surprise!" Tracey said pointing the wand at the snake halves. "Mundius."

"What was the spell?" Harry asked eyeing Tracey curiously.

"It tells if the target is edible," she explained.

"And?"

"The head contains poison, but the snake is perfectly edible," the redhead answered. "I'll fry it if you don't mind."

Harry shrugged and sat down after using a cooling charm on the sand. The snake didn't taste great, but it was something to fill their stomachs. Then the night came and Harry saw something that made him jump on his feet and exclaim, "There is fire!"

"Where?" Tracey asked following his gaze.

"There. I think..."

"Don't overexert, Potter," Tracey interrupted.

"Shut up, Davis. I think we should check if there are some humans there."

"That could be those snorkacks," the redhead suggested.

"We won't know if we don't check."

"Typical Gryffindork," she muttered shaking her head. "Alright, let's go."

"By the way, Davis, did you read Quibber?" Harry asked.

"Yeah," she answered smiling, "I like it, it's quite funny."

Harry nodded and they moved towards the campfire that was seen from afar. Under Notice-Me-Not charm they got near the camp and simultaneously breathed a sigh of relief. It was a human caravan. There were guards that had swords, bows, crossbows, spears and other weapons. Harry and Tracey realized that it has to be less developed world, but that didn't bother them. At least there were living humans.

"I suggest we get farther away from them and approach slowly using lumos mostly to be visible for them," Tracey said. "I'd rather not unnerve them by appearing suddenly in the middle of their camp."

"Agreed," Harry said.

The camp was set up few meters to the side from the road, so the paid just went hundred meters away from the camp and then began to approach the camp with glowing wands. The camp guards noticed them almost immediately, but fortunately didn't do anything until Harry and Tracey were ten meters from them.

"Hold!" they commanded. "Who's there?"

Neither Harry nor Tracey could believe their luck. These humans spoke English! They had no idea how that could be possible, but didn't want to look the gift horse in the mouth.

"We're... just travellers," Harry answered.

"Sorcerers?"

Harry hesitated for a moment and said, "Yes."

"What do you want?"

"We're lost," Tracey said before Harry. "We're not from here and we have no idea where to go in this desert to get to some town."

"Lut Gholein is less than a day away if you go this way," one of the guards said, pointing with his hand.

"Could we join you?" she asked.

"No," the guard said. "We have a rule to not accept anyone on the road. It's a safety risk. Besides we're on the way from Lut Gholein to Bramwell. It's four weeks from here. I'm sorry."

"It's alright," Harry said. "If we go now, how long will it take to get to Lut Gholein?"

"You'll probabably make it until midday," the guard answered.

"Thank you. I wish you a safe road," Harry said and led Tracey away from the camp.

"We should have confounded or imperioused them," Tracey said.

"And what if there are other wizards among them or they have some way to protect themselves from magic?"

She sighed. "You're right, probably. Let's use corroboro charm and head Lut Gholein."

"Corroboro charm? We'll sleep a full day after that!" Harry exclaimed.

"I'd rather sleep a full day in that town instead of here. We need strength, Potter."

"Well... alright," he agreed.

"**Corroboro**," they said at the same time with wands pointed at each other and felt a fresh flow of energy.

The road to Lut Gholein wasn't easy, but at least they weren't attacked by those red monsters. Exactly like the guard said, they saw the city around the midday. It was quite incredible sight from the hill. Neither of them expected a large port city they saw. Even from afar the city reminded them strongly of Arabian culture.

"How is that possible, that different words have so much in common?" Harry asked while they were approaching the city gates.

"No idea, Potter," Tracey said. "How many Galleons do you have?"

"Are you sure they'll accept gold?"

"I hope."

"I have fifteen Galleons, thirteen Sickles and a few Knuts," he said after he counted the coins from his robe.

"I have only two Sickles," the redhead said blushing.

"I'm sure it'll be enough if they accept gold," Harry said.

City guards didn't stop them at the gates and didn't demand any money to enter Lut Gholein. It was a classical old Middle Eastern city... or what they imagined those cities had to look like. After only a few minutes they unintentionally entered a market and were relieved to see that gold, silver and even copper were used there as currency.

Harry decided that the earlier they would get to bed, the better, so he asked an merchant, "Good day. Would you be so kind as to help us find a good tavern?"

"Just go straight ahead to the city centre," the merchant answered tiredly. "There are a lot of those."

"Thank you," Harry said and whispered to Tracey, "He's very kind, isn't he?"

"Yep. Did you notice how much people pay for food?" she asked. Harry shook his head and she continued, "We can probably live a year for your fifteen Gallons."

"That's good. At least we won't need money."

"I hope we'll be able to eat something at the tavern."

"I hope as well, the snake wasn't nearly enough," he agreed.

When they reached the city centre, they saw the Palace. The taverns at the central square were quite good and, as they soon learned, expensive. Though they had enough money to live there for three months. The food was decent, and it seemed that people in Lut Gholein (or in that particular tavern) knew a bit about hygiene. Everything was very clean. They even provided a bowl with water to wash hands.

"That's rather disturbingly civilized considering those monsters running in the desert," Tracey noted.

"Yeah," Harry agreed eating a quite tasty snake soup. "But wait until we see the rooms, they might be less clean."

"The charm's effect is wearing off," Tracey said feeling more tired every minute.

"I feel it too." He nodded. "But we still have time."

Like Harry predicted their room wasn't nearly as clean and they had to use a lot of magic to make it and the beds bearable. Before going to sleep, they warded the room against intrusion.

"Good night, Davis," Harry said, closing his eyes.

"Good night, Potter," she said before they both slipped into the arms of Morpheus.


	3. Chapter 3: Isra

_**A/N: **Aw, couldn't resist... wrote another chapter. Damn! _

_Don't really have time to write anything as for late, but I managed to type it on my phone. I work on the Prince of Serpents more carefully, so it's difficult to write it right now._

_Harry isn't too dense :) Just ask yourself, did he have a chance to learn about that part of our world? I guess, no._

* * *

**HARRY POTTER AND THE BURNING HELLS**

**by CreatorZorah**

**Chapter 3: Isra**

Harry woke up first. For a few moments he thought he was in Hogwarts, but then he relized that the room was different and there was no way he would be able to sleep with Davin in the same room. Davis of all people. Why did he managed to get here with Davis and not Hermione? He frowned, realizing that he didn't want her here, in this obviously dangerous world. No, he was glad that she wouldn't need to fight those beasts.

Harry cleaned himself using the magic, though he wanted to take a shower or, better, a bath. It was quite easy to conjure everything, but he didn't want to wake up Tracey, so he sat down, took books out of the bag and tried to read them. Obviously he failed. He didn't understand a word in Greek. He wasn't even sure how one read all these weird letters.

"You again, Potter," he heard Tracey's voice from behind. "I hoped it was a damn dream."

"Good morning, Davis," he said.

"Get the hell out, I want to bathe. And, please, order me something to eat. The snake soup, for example, it was great. And some vegetables as well. I'll come in a few minutes."

Harry rolled his eyes. "Alright," he said and left the room, went down the room in the main hall off the tavern.

It was relatively small, only ten tables. Four of them though weren't free. He sat down at one of the two free tables and waited until he was approached by a very cute young girl, about fourteen years old, with a shoulder-long black hair and dark brown, almost black eyes.

"What would you wish for the meal, milord?" she asked, looking in excitement at his staff.

Harry smiled and answered, "A soup for me and... eh... my friend. She'll join me soon. The snake soup I ate before was wonderful. Some vegetables would be great as well. And something to drink, please."

"Sure! I'll bring everything in a few minutes," she said cheerily and ran off.

A few minutes he just sat there studying other people. His robe wasn't something completely out of place, he saw a few people dressed almost the same, but clearly not common for this city. Besides, when he thought about those snorkacks, he wished he'd thought about the armor in the bag earlier. He would surely feel much more secure.

"Here you are, milord sorcerer."

Harry startled at the sudden appearance of the girl, shook his head and said, "Thank you. And please, call me Harry. It's disturbing when you call me milord sorcerer. What's your name?"

"I'm Isra, sir," she answered blushing.

"Flirting, already?" he heard suddenly Tracey's voice.

"I'm not," Harry said reddening.

The redhead rolled her eyes seeing the girl rushing away from the table and said, "It looks like I'm right on time."

"Yeah, Isra has brought the meal a moment ago."

"Good. " she said as they started to eat. "Did you order the beer?"

"Well, I just told something to drink. Is it alcoholic?"

"Yep, but it's great, very sweat and weak."

Harry gave it a try and nodded. "Yeah, it's good."

"So, Potter, any good ideas in the empty head of yours?"

He glared at her, fighting the urge to strangle the girl. "We should probably learn as much as possible about this place. I'd rather not ask people stupid questions, so libraries if there are any are the best bet, I believe."

"What was the name of your new girlfriend? Isra?" the redhead asked.

Harry nodded. "Drop it, Davis, she just liked my staff."

Tracey choked and began to laugh hysterically. "Potter, I didn't know you were so fast."

Harry blushed furiously realizing what she meant. "Bloody pervert," he muttered.

"Thanks, Potter," she said and called, "Hey, Isra!"

The girl turned around and came to the table. "Yes, milady?" she said.

"Are there any libraries in this city?"

"Yes, there is a library here, but to access it you should pay a lot," she answered.

"Where do we find it?" Tracey asked.

"It's the big building to the right from the Palace, milady," Isra answered.

"Thanks, you may go now," the redhead said dismissing the girl.

"Well, that went well," he said. "I'll go to take a bath, then we'll try to get into the library."

"Be careful with heating charms," Tracey warned. "I forgot about the potency of magic and unintentionally boiled water. Then I had to use cooling charm... Didn't work well either. Be careful using magic."

"Thanks for the warning," he said.

Half a hour later they left the tavern and headed towards the library. This time, when they weren't tired by endless wanderings in the desert, they could enjoy beautiful architecture of the city. It was quite clean, something they didn't expect from a city of this stage of development. Still...

"If we're stuck here," Tracey said, "It will be a pain to adjust to the life in this world."

"We aren't stuck here," Harry objected. "We'll find a way home."

"Still, we might be forced to live here for some time."

The wizard sighed and said, "But we're lucky that we didn't get here being Muggles."

"That would be... troublesome."

The building of library was really big and it was hard to miss. On entrance stood a few guards, which were in some deep conversation about women. Tracey muttered under her breath, "Typical men."

"We wish to enter the library," Harry told the guards.

One of them turned around and said lazily, "It's two gold coins for a each."

"For a day?" he questioned raising an eyebrow.

"No," the guard said. "That would be too expensive, wouldn't it? You're paying for permission to use the library for a week."

"I see," Harry said and turned to Tracey. She nodded and he handed over four coins to the guard. "We'll pay then."

The guard took the money and gave a scroll saying in monotone voice, "Don't lose it if you don't want to pay again. If you damage a book, you'll be forced to pay for it. If you do it intentionally or try to steal you'll be forbidden to enter the library ever again. If you have any questions, ask one of the Keepers."

"Aha," Harry uttered, placing the scroll into a pocket of the robe.

The library was huge on the outside and quite modest on the inside. Harry had to wonder why did they had built such a massive building to store a thousand tomes at most. On the other hand there were a lot of tables to work at and other rooms to get some private space for reading.

The moment Harry opened a book, he cursed realizing the problem. "It's written in a foreign language," he said.

"Potter, you should have chosen Ancient Runes instead of Divination," Tracey said. "There are spells that help to understand the meaning of the hand-written text independent of language."

"Really?"

"Yeah. Everything here is hand-written, that means that all these manuscripts keep mental projections of those who had written them. Why did you take divination anyway?"

"I have honestly no idea," he said sighing.

"Well... let me take a look at the book," she said opening a tome. After few minutes of wand manipulations she nodded and said, "I'll be able to decipher it, but it will take weeks, and we don't have money for that.

"Let's worry about that after we get out of the library," Harry suggested.

"Alright, ask a Keeper where history books are."

"On it," Harry said.

In the end it turned out to be more difficult than they thought, because books were stuffed there without any visible logic, the vast majority of books didn't even had titles. Around the midday they left the library and went to the market square to buy some clothes. Tracey wanted to confound everyone and take things without paying, but Harry argued that it would be foolish to risk their stay in the city.

"We need more money," Tracey said.

"Not right now," Harry said. "We can study texts for the week. I hope we'll find out how to get some money until then. By the way, why don't we just copy the books?"

"That wouldn't work. The spells I use would cease to work," Tracey answered shaking her head. "Magical copies don't contain mental projections and non-magical copies would hold our mental projections, but since we don't understand the texts, it wouldn't work either. I suggest we confound the guard and make him give us the scroll."

"As I said, they might have some defences against magic. Do you want to be chased by city guards?"

"Potter, just say that you're uncomfortable with confounding people," Tracey snapped.

Harry looked down and sighed. "So what? I'd hate to be confounded."

"Alright, let's wait, but if we don't find any way to get our hands on gold, we'll use magic," the redhead said.

Harry nodded. He wondered if sorcerers' work here was well paid and if they could consider themselves sorcerers, since their magic could be very different. What could they do else? Perhaps Isra would help them...

Unfortunately when they returned to the tavern, it was quite crowded, but she wasn't there. At least neither he nor Tracey saw her, so he went to the innkeeper, who was a scrawny man in his fortieth. He, obviously wasn't the proprieter, since this place had to be owned by someone relatively rich, and the innkeeper didn't look like that. Harry wondered if it would be wise to ask him, but he was reluctant to involve many people. He worried about people who would take advantage of Harry's and Tracey's lack of knowledge. Besides he feared how people would react if they knew that Harry and Tracey came from another world. So, asking questions the young girl, who was awed by the fact that he was a wizard, was probably a good idea. Harry doubted that Isra would take advantage of it.

"Evening," he said. "Would you tell me when Isra will be here?"

The man eyed him for a few moments and said, "Good evening, milord sorcerer. May I ask, what are your intentions towards her?"

Taken aback, Harry said, "I just wanted to talk."

"Ehm... about what, milord?"

"Why do you care?" Harry countered slightly annoyed by the man.

"I'm her father."

"Oh," Harry muttered. "Then it's understandable why you care. Don't worry, like I said, I just want to talk. I and my friend..." He nodded towards Tracey which sat at a table. "We're new to this city and Isra helped us a lot already."

The innkeeper smiled warmly and said, "Isra will come in half a hour. I'll tell her you were asking for her. Would you and your friend like something to eat?"

"Something of your choice. We aren't familiar with the food of this place."

Harry returned to Tracey and sat beside her. People here obviously loved soups, not that he complained, because the soups were delicious. This time it reminded Harry of a beef soup.

"Whoa, I already like this place," Tracey said. "They certainly can cook."

"Yes, they can," Harry said with a smile. "I was thinking..."

"Like you're able..."

"Shut up, Davis," he roared. "We can probably go to that tomb and seek for valuable things."

"How? It seems, you've already forgot that there are hordes of skeletons."

"Yeah, but they didn't seem to be difficult to fight. We've just panicked," he said. "Wish I could apparate..."

"My father told me, you wanted to see me, mi... Harry, milady?"

Harry recognized the voice and turned around, but before he could say anything, Tracey spoke, "Drop this milady, please. Call me Tracey. Do you have to work right now?"

"No, I don't really work here, I just help my father out."

"Well, why don't you join us then?"

"Really?" Isra asked, her eyes shining with joy, obviously happy to sit with sorcerers.

"Yeah, we would like your company," the redhead said.

Isra blushed lightly and sat down at the table. "Did you find the library?" she asked.

"Yes, thank you," Harry said.

"If you don't work here, what do you do when you aren't here?" Tracey asked.

"Nothing," she answered with a smile, that, however, could fool neither Harry nor Tracey. It was obvious, that she did something she didn't like.

"Is something wrong?" Harry asked.

"Let's just talk about something else," she said.

"I'm sorry I brought it up," Tracey said.

"It's nothing," Isra said shaking her head. "My life here isn't bad, but I'd rather travel around the world, see all those interesting things with my own eyes."

And so they talked for another hour. Isra turned out to be fifteen, a year older than Harry had thought. The girl always wanted to do magic. It was something that would enable her to leave her current life behind. That's why she was so awed by the fact the pair wielded magic. It was an unreachable dream and she was able to touch it briefly by talking to Harry and Tracey, since they were young too.

"We were wondering if you know if there are any jobs for sorcerers like us? We'll stay here for some time and would like to do something useful," Harry asked at last.

"Oh... I don't really know, you could convoy some merchants. They pay very well," the girl said. "But there are lot of old crypts out there in the deserts. Tons of people come to search them for treasures. Men always talk about it when..." She stopped abruptly and then continued, "It's dangerous though, but you're sorcerers..."

"So it's not forbidden by some laws?" Tracey questioned.

"No," Isra said and glanced out of the window frowning. "It's getting late, I have to return to... my work."

Harry nodded and said, "We'll see you later."

"I hope we will!" the girl said and left the tavern.

Harry sighed and looked at Tracey, who was looking with somewhat sad expression at the door. "What's bothering you?" he asked.

"You're clueless idiot, aren't you?" Tracey shook her head and said, "Didn't you notice all these slips on her part? Don't you wonder why she dislikes her job, why she's reluctant to speak about it and what kind of job she has to go there when the sun gets down?"

"What do you mean?" he asked frowning, because he really didn't get what was the matter.

"Forget it, Potter," Tracey said, stood up and headed towards their room. Harry followed, still wondering why Tracey got upset.


	4. Chapter 4: Leah

**Author's Notes:** What? Another chapter? I'm going crazy! The story is very fun to write, because it's so easy for some reason.

* * *

Merlin, Potter isn't dense or clueless. You should remember, that he "grew up in a cupboard", then he spent the most of time in Hogwarts, with Weasleys at the Burrow or at the Grimauld Place. I doubt he was able to watch TV very oft. Where would he learn about prostitution? Sure he heard about that, he's sixteen, for God's sake, but I doubt it would be so obvious for him to realize what kind of job Isra had.

* * *

**HARRY POTTER AND THE BURNING HELLS**

_by CreatorZorah_

**Chapter 4: Leah**

The next morning they went directly to the library after having a breakfast. They hoped to see Isra, but she wasn't there. Harry would be indifferent, but Tracey's worried face told him that something wasn't right. He was frustrated by the fact that Tracey refused to talk about the girl. He hated missing point and feeling stupid.

Instead of history books they began to search more information about tombs in the deserts. It was quite clear that the best way to get money were these tombs, therefore Harry and Tracey decided to learn as much as possible about them. In process Tracey began to teach Harry the spells and techniques she was using to decipher the books.

Harry wouldn't say that their searches were fruitless, but they were less than satisfying. There were a lot of manuscripts that seemed to be fairy tales, but written so seriously that it made the pair doubt. It didn't help that some books contradicted others, and sometimes Tracey couldn't understand large chunks of text, because they were restored by someone who had no idea what the text was about. But they learned bits of useful information too.

"Potter, take a look," Tracey said, pointing at the book.

"What is it?" he asked.

"I've translated it," the redhead said and pointed at the text in the book. "Listen: ..._believed that her crypt is located... the deserts..._"

"You think it's about that tomb with hordes of skeletons, don't you?" Harry asked. "It could mean anything."

"Yes," she agreed, "But there is more: _...ashi, the powerful rogue sorceress of the Zann Esu clan, an apprentice of Nephalem Esu herself is buried there._"

"What's the Zann Esu? And who is Nephalem Esu? And how does it change anything?"

"I'm not sure... One of the book mentioned that Nephalem were first... humans of this world. It says that they were extremely powerful. Esu was just one of them and the last time she was seen alive was about three thousand years ago. Does that ring any bells?"

"Three thousand years ago?" Harry repeated. "Wasn't that when last sorcerers were seen in our world?"

"I'm impressed, Potter, sometimes you can even think," Tracey said. "Her apprentice had to exist to the same time. The crypt is crucial in finding way home. She might be the one who visited our world and left some of her equipment there. The exact location of her crypt seems to stay unknown. We found it only because we appeared inside of it. And don't say it's just a coincidence, Potter, or I'll kill you."

"No, everything you say makes sense. But that doesn't explain, why the books are in Greek and why was the crypt swarmed by undeads," Harry noted.

"That's true," Tracey agreed. "But to know more we have to return to the crypt. Even if I'm wrong, we might find something valuable there."

"I hope we will find something valuable."

She sighed and said, "I'm tired and could eat a hippogriff. let's go to the tavern."

"Sure," Harry said. "I'm hungry as well."

"Put this book somewhere, so that it stays hidden," the redhead said.

Harry nodded and put the book behind other tomes on a bookshelf. The book seemed to be a very good source of information, he would hate to lose it. Then they headed towards the exit. Harry glanced at the redhead studying her for a few moments. She looked absorbed in her thoughts. She was clearly thinking about discoveries they had made today. She was so eager to learn that she reminded him of Hermione. _Hermione_... Oh how much he wished to see his friends again.

"Uncle Deckard, I'll come back in a hour," he heard a female voice and turned around.

"Be careful, Leah."

It was an old man, probably Deckard, and a young woman, only few years older than Harry. She was beautiful, green eyes and brown shoulder-long hair, tanned skin. She was dressed in what Harry would call a traveling clothes. The top was light and quite open, but leather-armored. A bow was visible attached to her back. It was odd to see her in the library. During their time here they noticed that the most visitors were older people. It wasn't really surprising, since it turned out that the vast majority couldn't read these books. And those young people who could didn't need nor want to go here paying a lot of gold.

She noticed him looking at her and smiled at him. Harry stumbled over a stone, hearing a giggle, but Tracey caught him in time, so he didn't fall to the ground. He cursed silently feeling completely stupid. He managed to made a fool out of himself before that woman.

"Potter, can't you even walk properly?" the redhead said, she seemed to be annoyed.

"I just stumbled over that stupid stone, Davis," he said.

She rolled her eyes and said, "Right."

He turned around again, but Leah was already gone. _Leah,_ that was her name. He could barely keep breathing, because she wasn't there anymore for him to see her smile. He fought the urge to go to the old man and ask him about his niece. Then he shook his head trying to clear his mind from the woman's charms and sighed. It was just her appearance. Hormones. He already had his mistake with Cho, no need to repeat it. Still... _Leah_...

When they got to the tavern, they didn't see Isra and her father said that she would be busy for a few days. When Harry went to the room, Tracey stayed behind for a few moments. The wizard didn't notice it until he was in the room, while Tracey were nowhere in sight. He began to worry, but she came only few minutes later.

"Where have you been?" Harry asked.

"Doesn't matter," Tracey answered. "Do you want to try learning sorcery?"

Harry's eyes widened as she remembered about the books and he said, "I've almost forgot about it. Let's do it. I'm sure it'll be very useful."

"I'll translate to you," Tracey said as she sat on the floor with a book before her and started leafing through it. Harry smiled when a scowl appeared on her face. "The half of the book is about mediation and techniques of reaching some kind of etheral plane. It will take a lot of time to learn that."

"Well, we don't have any other source to learn magic..."

"We have. I have a lot of books in my robe," Tracey interrupted.

"Really?" Harry said. "Where?"

"In the pockets, Potter, where else? Didn't you know that Madam Malkin sells robes equipped with undetectable extension charms?"

"No," he said shaking his head. "How many books do you have?"

She sighed and answered, "It's mostly sixth year books and a few extracurricular spellbooks."

"Well, then we could just learn from your books," Harry suggested.

"And forget about sorcery?" Tracey said in disbelief. "You must be joking, Potter! Don't you have some kind of ambition or desire to wield powerful unique magic?" Before Harry could answer, she continued, "Oh Hell, sometimes I wonder how did you manage to become a relatively good duelist with this kind of attitude!"

"Davis..."

"Taking magical creatures and divination just because it's bloody easy and slacking off with Weasley for the most of the Hogwarts..."

"Merlin, Davis!" he exclaimed.

"Are you aware that even that dunderhead Malfoy took Ancient Runes and this year Alchemy?"

"I don't care what the ferret took as electives, but..."

"You know what? I don't care," Tracey snapped and began to throw books at him. "Take the bloody books and learn what you...!"

"Bloody hell, Davis!" Harry roared angrily. "Stop throwing things at me!"

"Why should I?" Tracey responded sending DADA book at him.

"Because I never said I won't learn sorcery. You've just continued to assume things, giving me no chance to say anything. So stop it, or I'll bloody curse you!"

The redhead glared at him for a few seconds, then sighed and said, "Sorry, I was just taking my frustration out on you. I'm under bloody stress, you know? I try to appear calm, but..." At that he saw tears on her eyes as she began to cry. "I'm scared," she muttered. "This bloody world is crazy."

"Davis..."

"All these monsters, skeletons... Demons we read about... They have fifteen-years-old girls working in brothels and consider it normal. Even her father don't seem to mind it. What kind of world is it?"

"Tracey," he said taking a step towards her. "We'll get back."

"I don't know," she said. "It seems that we're stuck here..."

He reached his arms and embraced her. Tracey put her arms around him and cried on his shoulder. "I promise, we'll get back," he whispered. A few minutes later Tracey calmed down and looked at him for a few seconds. "What?" he blurted out.

She smiled and said, "If you try to hug me again, I'll curse the hell out of you, Potter."

Harry scowled. "Why you..."

"Oh get off of me, you stinks," she interrupted him. "Better help me gather things."

"Bloody ungrateful snake," he muttered, gathering books from the floor.

"Stupid Gryffindork," she replied.

Harry smiled, actually happy to see Tracey returning to her normal self. He felt, however, very stupid because he didn't notice how tense the redhead was all the time. He had to be more attentive to his... friend? Was she his friend? Only a few days ago she was just another Slytherin, but now it seemed like he knew her for years. Somehow she became almost as close to him as Hermione and Ron. He could only wonder how did that happen.

"Hey," Harry said. "Is Isra really...?"

"She is," Tracey answered. "I asked her father before going to the room."

"But how can her father be so calm about it?"

"Apparently, it's normal here," she said. "There isn't much for women to do. Besides, since it's a port city the demand on such... services is very high. If she wouldn't do that, her family would probably starve. That doesn't mean that she has to like it though."

"Still, she's only fifteen."

"You're trying to build up your judgement based on the norms of our world. It's wrong. Here you're considered an adult the moment you can hold a weapon in your hands and fight with it," Tracey said. "I read it in one of those books in library. Read my notes, by the way, there are lots of useful information."

"Perhaps we should help her," he suggested.

"How?" Tracey asked. "Are you going to help every prostitute in this city?"

"No, but she's... friend."

"Potter, we can't help ourselves right now. Let's solve our own problems first, then we'll think about Isra. Otherwise it's possible we would end up ruining her and our lives."

Harry sighed. He could see the truth in her words, but it was very frustrating. "You're right, but... it seems wrong."

"Yeah, I know what you mean," she said nodding. "Let's try to meditate."

"Alright," he agreed.

The magical mediation was very difficult. It was all about keeping one's mind clear and empty, not the easiest feat. Still it was only the first step. Then they would need to learn to feel magic or, as it was called in the sorcery book - arcane energies. The third step is learning to absorb the energy. And only then they would be able to learn actual spells.

Before they went to sleep Harry asked Tracey to read him about the spells. It turned out that they were mostly about elements: fire, cold and lightning. The first two weren't really that appealing, since they could do that even without sorcery, though some of the spells looked incredible if the descriptions weren't lying. But the lightning spells were much more interesting for both of them. Neither Tracey not Harry knew spells that operated with lightning. The things the element allowed to do were amazing.

Besides elements there was, however, something that interested them the most. Spells that allowed to manipulate space and time. It was quite obvious that the one who wrote the book could control time to some extent and create portals that would take him or her to different parts of the world. These portals had to be somehow related to the way they ended up in this world. The scroll triggered opening some kind of portal to this world. If there was a way to create portal to this world, it had to be possible to create the way back.

"Isn't there some information about traveling between the worlds?" Harry asked.

"No," she said shaking her head. "Nothing."

"And I hoped we would find something useful," he said with a sigh.

"I hope we'll find something in the . Let's sleep, I'm tired."

"Well, good night," Harry said going to his bed.

"Good night, Potter," Tracey said, lying down on her bed.

When he climbed onto his bed, he couldn't help but think back on the encounter with the green-eyed woman. Logic was telling him that they wouldn't meet ever again, but he felt like he would meet her again. Something was telling him, that destiny would bring them together. Harry wished they would meet earlier rather than later, but at the same time he wondered if it wouldn't be for the better, if they didn't meet at all. _Leah_...

* * *

**Author's Notes 2**:

I didn't plan to introduce Leah and Cain in this chapter, but it has kind of happened. They were supposed to appear later, but for some reason I felt it was right for them to make their appearance.

* * *

**HP/TD**, the pairing I promised in the beginning, won't happen very soon. I'll try to make it more realistic than "They met each other, fell in love and had a long and happy life." And yeah, Harry's attraction to Leah was planned from the beginning. It's quite important for the future of the story. I hope you won't be disappointed.


	5. Chapter 5

**Author's Notes: **If someone has some troubles with the story because he or she isn't familiar with Diabloverse, send a private message to me and I'll try to correct it.

In the game there are a lot of various magical items. In this story, magical items will be quite rare, won't be sold in shops and will be very expensive if someone decides to sell them. No instant healing potions, no Town Portals, no Waypoints and no ressurection, of course. :)

A bit corrected version.

* * *

**HARRY POTTER AND THE BURNING HELLS**

**by CreatorZorah**

**Chapter 5**

When the pair came out of the library next day, Harry was upset that he didn't have a chance to see the green-eyed beauty, but there wasn't much time to think about her, since they had important things to do. They had to prepare for their trip to the sorceress' tomb. They weren't completely sure if they were right and it really was the tomb, but they hoped to find answers... and gold to renew the permission to use the library.

Their first stop was a master armourer, who specialized in leather. Leather was easy to enchant and comfortable to wear. They hoped they wouldn't need it, but just in case they decided to wear armours. They had no idea if the one they found at Hogwarts was any good and didn't trust anyone to look at it. The armour had been in the same crate as the staff and had to be centuries old and it still looked good. It had to be a very special item. But at first they would have to find someone trustworthy.

The only problem was to find a good armourer, so they just started to ask people on the streets if they knew a good master or merchant. Some people didn't answer at all, some didn't know if the one they knew was any good, but the majority pointed them at an particular merchant. Neither Tracey nor Harry listened to them, since it was the minority they found to be trustworthy. All of them seemed to be quite experienced warriors that fought in battles, if the scars on their bodies and eyes that carried heavy burden were of any indication.

All of them told them about this particular master. The shop was located in the north, far from the market and the port. It didn't seem to be much, but when they studied his works even they could tell that the quality was good.

"How can I help you?" the master said.

"Are you Syed?" Tracey asked.

"Yes, that's me," he answered.

"We were told that you can help us with an armour."

"Hmm... You're sorcerers, aren't you?" he said.

"Yes."

"Then you probably want something light enough that wouldn't restrict your movements," he continued.

"Right, but something that will still provide necessary protection," Harry said.

"Do you need one or two sets?"

"Tow sets," Harry answered. "For us."

"You both have quite slender build. Hmm... I would recommend this," he said pointing at a dark-brown set: a top, pants, bracers and a belt. Then he pointed with a finger on a lighter-coloured set and said, "Or that, practically identical, just a different design. Both contain steel plates between leather and canvas."

"I'd rather like the darker one, it's more... feminine," Tracey said and glanced at Harry.

"Well, the other one then," he said wondering why she thought the darker armour was more feminine.

"Well, it's five silver coins for each," Syed said. "Try it on, I need to know what adjustments I have to do."

They shrugged simultaneously and agreed. It wasn't easy to put everything on, because one had to think about lots of laces buckles and other things. Surprisingly it turned out to be quite good. A bit heavy and there were places that made wearing uncomfortable, but Syed reassured them that after adjustments they wouldn't feel the armour at all.

"You look great," he said looking at her.

"Thanks, you look like shit," Tracey deadpanned.

"How nice of you," Harry muttered and turned to Syed, that was smiling eyeing the pair.

Syed nodded to himself and said, "It's five coins now, the rest in two days, after I make the necessary adjustments. If you need them faster..."

"No, it's quite alright," Harry said giving him silver coins. "Do you have boots too?"

"I have some to show. A friend of mine will make them for you if you wish. They'll be ready at the time you'll come to get your armours," the man answered and led them to another room. "They're of a perfect quality. Do you plan to wear them in the deserts?"

"Yes," answered Tracey.

"Then, I believe these boots would be perfect for you," he said to Tracey giving her a pair of long steel-armored boots. They were quite nice for this medieval surrounding.

Tracey frowned and asked, "Aren't they too heavy?"

"No, they're quite light and your legs will be well protected. These are exactly what you need," he answered and turned to Harry giving him another, much less elegant ones. "And these will be fine for you."

"How much are they?" Harry asked.

"Three pieces of silver each," Syed answered.

"I guess we take it, because our shoes aren't good for deserts."

"Allow my apprentice to measure your feet then."

The apprentice was a young man, probably, around twenty, he was quite nervous, but knew his job very good. Before they left Syed suggested to look at the markets for robes or cloaks and bring them to him until the evening, so that he would be able to adjust them as well, so that clothes would be comfortable to wear with armours. Harry cursed inwardly, because his first shopping at the market square with Tracey was... long and boring.

"Potter, I have a good idea," Tracey said as they went to market square. "Let's buy brooms."

Harry stopped in his track and exclaimed, "Tracey, that's brilliant! But I'm not sure we'll be able to charm them properly. I didn't do exactly well in that Charms assignment."

"We don't need Firebolts," she noted. "And I'm sure even a dunderhead like you, Potter, can produce a crude flying broom. Besides, I did quite well. I can charm the handle, you'll have to charm twigs."

"Davis, can you go a single day without insults?" He groaned.

"No," she answered with a smile, "Get used to it."

What they didn't know was that it was very difficult to find a suitable broom in Lut Gholein. Only plants they could find there were various palms and bloody cactuses, that didn't have twigs. Therefore it's understandable that no one would sell suitable besoms, but they needed a besom to enchant it. They decided to look for brooms at the port later and concentrate on clothes instead. Harry didn't waste his time and bought a simple brown knee-long sleeved robe with a hood that wouldn't restrict his movements. Surprisingly, Tracey wasted only half a hour until she found something she liked. He had to admit that the robe she had chosen looked good. It was white with dark-red patterns that complemented her hair.

After they brought clothes to Syed, they went after brooms. Sadly their quest was a complete failure, since they found absolutely no brooms with twigs. That made Tracey snappish and very bitchy, though Harry couldn't blame her, because they wasted hours without any result. Harry got an idea when he saw an old woman at market square, that was selling herbs and plants with various properties.

"Davis, come," he said dragging her to the old woman.

"What do you want with that hag?" the redhead asked annoyed.

"Twigs. It's the first damn time I see twigs in this city," he said and approached the woman. "Good day, how much are these twigs?"

"Good day, young man," the 'old hag' said. "These are very rare twigs..."

"Hey, old hag, he asked you how much they are, not what they are," Tracey interrupted her. "So, would you be so kind and answer the question?"

The woman glared at the redhead and answered, "A gold coin."

"Are you kidding me?" Tracey asked. "These are just bloody twigs. We'll pay you a silver coin."

The woman scowled, but said, "Ten."

"I said, one silver coin," the redhead growled.

"If you won't pay, then be gone. Five coins and I won't sell them for less."

"Fine," Tracey said, grabbing the twigs and handing over silver. "Here are your money." With that she just rushed away.

"I'm sorry for her behaviour," Harry said struggling with keeping himself from laughing and trying to be polite. "We had a very long day."

The old woman just waved with her hand and said laughing, "It's a market, that's normal."

Harry rolled his eyes and ran after Tracey. They still had to find poles, but it wasn't the problem. Unlike twigs, they could buy them everywhere. So, when they came to their room, they had everything they needed to begin with construction of brooms. That wasn't difficult, he did that one in fifth year in the charms. Like she suggested, Harry left handles to Tracey, because he didn't trust himself with controls of the brooms. Tracey was much better in this particular area, so he accepted a very monotone boring part of the work. Charming the twigs.

"How do they make Firebolts identical when the twigs are so different?" Harry wondered aloud.

"I believe they choose twigs very carefully," Tracey answered continuing to work on the handle. "Besides, who said that they were identical? Each broom has its own characteristics."

"Well, that makes sense," Harry agreed.

"I heard that when some team went to buy Firebolts they spent a lot of time there to choose the right one for each member of the team. Some are a little bit faster, others are more stable or agile. It's almost unnoticable, since, as I said, they choose twigs very careful."

"How do you know so much?" Harry asked.

"Because I read books, Potter. You should try too."

"I read too," he protested.

"Really?" Tracey said smiling. "And here I thought that you were using Granger as a personal walking encyclopedia."

"Don't insult her," Harry said seriously.

"I didn't realize that it was an insult. She's an intelligent witch unlike the certain raven-haired boy."

Harry flinched and said, "You're bloody full of yourself, Davis. Even blindfolded I'd outduel you."

"Right," she said waving her hand. "You're good at dueling, but suck at everything else."

Harry clenched his fists, and said, "You know nothing, Davis."

She didn't answer and he decided to concentrate on the twigs. He didn't have time to learn anything else. He had to be good at fighting to stay alive and protect his friends. He could trust his friends to do anything else. But at the same time he knew that there was some truth in her words. He wasted a lot of time doing practically nothing and that frustrated him.


	6. Chapter 6: The Tomb of Zanashi

**Author's notes: **

I've got absolutely no time... But I think I'll have a lot of it in the mid August. That's when I'll be able to continue my other stories too. Can't wait, because I'm bloody tired of learning for exams.

* * *

**HARRY POTTER AND THE BURNING HELLS**

**by CreatorZorah**

**Chapter 6: The Tomb of Zanashi**

Harry Potter didn't expect the brooms they had charmed to be any good. Despite Tracey's words, he doubted that she would do as good as Hermione. As far as he could remember, only his bushy-haired friend produced a decent broom. It was still worse than school brooms. Though he had to admit, that he had no idea how good Tracey had been in that assignment.

That's why he was sceptical two days later when they went to the desert to test their brooms.

"Come on, Potter, let's get over with it," Tracey said looking at him as he was holding the broom in his hand.

"I'm not sure I want to test it," he said reluctantly mounting the broom.

"I'll catch you, if something goes wrong."

"Really?" he asked raising an eyebrow.

Tracey grinned and shook her head. "Of course not, I would just let you fall. I'm just trying to make you test the broom."

"That's the girl I know," he said starting slowly to descend higher.

"Yeah. How is it?" she asked.

He shrugged and answered, "Well, it's as stable as a cow dung, but, well, so were the school brooms."

"We don't need to play quidditch," reminded him Tracey.

"I know, so it's pretty acceptable," he said, trying to fly forward. "It has a small left pull."

Tracey nodded. "I'll correct it."

"Cushioning charm is perfect," he said. "The agility is terrible, but, as you said, we don't need to play quidditch with it."

"Accelerate, Potter," she said.

"Yeah," he agreed and started to gain speed. Surprisingly it was very fast. Not as fast as Firebolt but on par with Nimbus 2000.

"That was fast," Tracey said, when he slowed down.

"Yeah, probably, because of the potency of magic here, but I suggest we don't try to fly that fast. Stability leaves much to be desired. The braking charm is okay," he said and dismounted the broom. "Overall, it's a passable broom. I, honestly, didn't expect it."

"Considering that I wasted on it only three evenings, I'd say I did a great job," Tracey said.

"We did a great job," Harry corrected her mounting the second broom.

"Yeah, you charmed the twigs and look what it did to the stability!" she exclaimed mockingly beginning to correct the charms on the broom's handle.

Harry sighed and muttered, "You wouldn't do any better with those twigs." With that he get off the ground and began the test of the second broom. When he touched the sand with his feet, he said, "Practically the same. A bit more stable and has no pull."

The redhead nodded and continued to do necessary corrections. Harry was embarrassed by how he misjudged Tracey. She charmed the handles on par... Hell, she did it even better than Hermione, who worked a month on her assignment. Hermione's broom was a little bit more stable, but much less agile, braking charm was just horrible and the broom had much stronger pull, the problem she couldn't solve for two weeks, while Tracey was doing it in the middle of nowhere in minutes.

"I didn't know you were so good," he said.

Tracey scowled. "Do it yourself if you can do any..."

"I didn't mean it as a sarcasm," Harry interrupted her. "You're really good. Honestly, I didn't know that someone could be better than Hermione."

Harry could swear that he saw that her face reddened for a second. "Granger is a Jack of all Trades," Tracey said. "A very talented Jack, I have to admit, but it would do her good if she had concentrated on something. I'm very good at charms and creating magical items. I always loved it." She paused, nodded looking at the broom and said, "The broom is ready."

"Good, then we'll move out tomorrow," Harry said.

The next morning a young woman that was traveling through the deserts in company of an old man and few mercenaries became witnesses of a very weird sight. They noticed two flying figures over the dunes, that were approaching the group very fast. Before they even could try to prepare for a possible attack, flying objects flew over their heads and continued their path. The young woman was only sure that she saw two humans that were flying on some kind of brooms.

"What was that, Uncle Deckard?" she asked the old man.

He didn't answer for a few moments looking at two flyers that were moving further and further towards horizon. "I've no idea, Leah."

"A sorcery, probably," one of the mercenaries suggested.

"Or worse," another added.

Of course the flyers were Harry and Tracey. If Tracey knew that Harry had a secret crush on the woman they met briefly in the library, she would have to thank every possible deity that he didn't notice her in the deserts. And the reason is very simple. The brooms were far from stable and they had to be careful to not lose the control over them. And Harry would surely look only at Leah if he'd be unlucky enough to see her.

A hour after they left the city the pair dismounted their brooms at the entrance of the tomb and looked around. Everything seemed to be quiet, so they nodded to each other placed a Notice-Me-Not charm around the entrance and began to levitate the debris. They were surprised when skeletons didn't attack them the moment the path was cleared.

"Perhaps it's some kind of defence of this place," Tracey suggested. "And skeletons returned back to wherever they were before we disturbed the place."

"Be careful and don't step into another trap," Harry said. "I'd rather not fight undead if possible."

"I'm not that clumsy," she said with a scowl as they moved forward.

Thankfully, Harry knew a spell that was showing every trap on their way. He learnt it in the fourth year while preparing for the third task. Of course it didn't work with magical barriers and wards, but the trap Tracey had sprung was a mechanical one. When they saw how many there were, they realized that it was a mere luck that they managed to get out of the tomb alive. Harry shuddered when he saw especially horrible trap. The spell alerted about a big jar with oil at the ceiling and then Tracey saw a magical device that would set the unfortunate intruder on fire.

"The one who built it was really paranoid and sadistic," she said grimly.

"Yeah," Harry agreed. "And the horrible truth is we ran just through this room back then. How did we manage to not step on it is a mystery."

"And why the bloody hell someone wanted to build a tomb like a labyrinth?"

"Perhaps they didn't want somebody like us to find the sorceress' body?" Harry suggested.

Tracey shrugged and they continued their way through the darkness of the tomb's labyrinth.

"Stop!" Tracey exclaimed suddenly grabbing his hand.

Harry stopped and asked, "What?"

"Look," she said. "The air is shimmering. It's a barrier."

"Bloody hell," Harry whispered taking a step back. "Thanks, I didn't notice it."

"Do you know anything about barriers?" she asked, conjuring a stone a throwing it at the barrier.

"No," he said shaking his head as the stone disappeared with a bright flash.

"Well I know a bit. We can try to overpower it with attacking spells," she said sighing. "But I think we should explore other corridors first."

"Or we just do as you said, overpower this thing."

"I'm not sure it's a good idea, Potter. What if that causes a collapse of the tomb. It's few thousand years old."

"I think we would just waste time by going somewhere else, because there is clearly something behind the barrier."

"Or it's just a trap," Tracey said.

"Yeah, but perhaps the trap sprangs if we go somewhere else."

Tracez groaned and said, "Alright. We'll overpower it. Cast a shield over us, so that we wouldn't be crushed by the stones in case the bloody tomb collapses."

Harry nodded and placed a shield over both of them. "Be ready to apparate out of here."

"I'm not stupid, Potter."

Harry rolled his eyes, pointed his wand at the barrier and exclaimed, "**Reducto! Confringo!**" Two beams stuck the barrier producing loud bangs and flashes but the barrier was still there.

"**Avada Kedavra!**" Tracey interjected.

Harry stopped throwing spells at the barrier and watched as the green beam smashed into it. As the curse did nothing he turned to Tracey and asked, "Why did you think it was a good idea to throw a Killing Curse? If confringo didn't work..."

Tracey interrupted him saying, "I just wanted to see if the barrier would stop the curse, Potter."

His eyes widened at realization that the barrier has stopped an unblockable curse. "I want to learn how this barrier was created," he said.

"Yeah, same here," Tracey agreed. "But let's continue. **Expulso**!"

"**Bombarda Maxima**!" Harry shouted.

The last spell did its job and the barrier shattered in a deafening explosion. The pair froze eyeing the ceiling cautiously for a few seconds. Then they sighed simultaneously when it didn't appear to be collapsing. That's when they noticed it.

"Davis, the undead," Harry exclaimed.

"Shit," she muttered seeing the skeletons begin to rise and walk at them.

"We still can apparate from here if you want," he said.

"No, I'm alright. Let's fight."

And so they began to throw the curses at the skeletons occasionally forced to shield themselves from arrows. To their surprise some of the undead wielded bows and could actually fire at them. That was disturbing enough, but then they saw something that almost stunned them.

Instead of using a bow or going at them with some kind of weapon a skeleton threw at them a massive glowing bolt that looked a lot like lighting. Harry managed to send an exploding curse at the mage and to cast a shield that shattered at the impact but still protected the pair. However, surprised by the power of the spell they lost precious moments and Tracey was a bit too late to shield herself from an arrow.

Hearing Tracey crying out in pain he jumped to her and threw a shield powerful shield around around her and continued to destroy the undead worrying about his friend. He couldn't, however, pay her any more attention until he dealt with the rest of skeletons. When he saw no more attackers, he conjured a shield around them and turned around to look at Tracey that was sitting on the floor.

"I'm... alright, P-potter," Tracey said clutching her left hand and he saw blood pouring between her fingers.

"You're most certainly not alright," Harry said with a scowl. "Let me see."

"I s-said I'm alright."

"Bloody hell, it's not the time to argue. Let me see the wound!" he exclaimed. "We have to heal it."

She hissed and let him see the hand. There was a finger missing. "The b-bloody bas-stard s-severed my little finger."

"Accio finger," Harry whispered flicking his wand and caught her finger with a left hand. It was sickening, but he forced himself to concentrate on the problem.

"Gi-give it back!" she whispered.

He complied and said, "Do you know any healing spell that could reattach it?"

"N-no, I don't know any healing s-spells."

He grimaced and suggested, "I'll try a spell I know. Place it... where it... well, belongs."

"N-not f-funny, P-potter," she said shuttering from the pain, but did as asked.

"**Episkey**!" he uttered pointing the staff at the finger.

Tracey hissed as it burned a bit for a moment, but the pain lessened and she was happy to see the finger reattached again. She looked at Harry, smiled brightly and whispered, "Thank you, Harry."

"Don't worry about it," he said sheepishly.

Tracey nodded. "I'm sorry, it was a stupid mistake to let my guard down in the middle of fight. That skeleton surprised me."

"Yeah, I know what you mean. I didn't think an undead would be able to wield magic though," he said helping her to stand up.

"Did you see what he threw at us?" she asked.

"Some kind of electrical bolt. Can't believe how powerful if was."

Tracey nodded and said, "That was a spell I read about in that book about sorcery."

"I want to learn it really badly," Harry said in excitement.

"We have to invest more time in meditation," Tracey suggested.

"Yeah, once we return, we will," he agreed.

Tracey smiled at him happy that he was at last eager to learn and said, "Let's go and learn the secrets of this tomb."


	7. Chapter 7: Zanashi

**Author's note:** This chapter came quite different from previous chapters. But I think I had to show a bit of Tracey's innerworld.

Besides, thanks for reviews. They're really helpful and help me keep writing the story. Since you said that I should show more than tell, well, I decided to try and do it :)

* * *

**HARRY POTTER AND THE BURNING HELLS**

**by CreatorZorah**

**Chapter 7: Zanashi**

Tracey couldn't help but be confused by Harry Potter. She wasn't close to him or his friends and could judge him only by things she could see. She always thought that he was an arrogant attention-seeking idiot and, well, she had every reason to.

In the first year he wouldn't speak to Slytherins and she even heard him and Weasley calling all Slytherins evil. What kind of fool would say that? The vast majority of the House were quite decent people. But anyway, he wasn't all that friendly to anyone who wasn't Weasley. She even heard something about insulting Granger leaving her crying in a bathroom. She knew how difficult it was sometimes for Muggleborns to adapt and she couldn't really understand why would he, or Weasley, whoever, insult her. Not that she really cared, since she was more concerned about her own well-being.

During the Troll incident, everyone went to their dorms, but Potter ran away to fight the troll. How stupid and arrogant one should be to do something like this? Then he was allowed to have a broom while being a first-year, rewarded for breaking the rules! He wasn't even punished for flying the broom after Madam Hooch had clearly forbidden it. The fact annoyed her quite a lot, since it seemed that the Golden Boy was allowed to do everything he wanted without any consequences.

And then he had to get the position of Seeker. The most important and attention-grabbing role in the game. Sure he was good, but not as a first year that could barely keep himself from falling off the broom. Everyone could do as good as him on a Nimbus 2000. It was like one and a half times faster than any other broom in the school. Any older student would play much better on a Nimbus. But, well, the Golden Boy obviously had to get attention.

Additionally at the year's end he and his friends were awarded hundred seventy points for some kind of bullshit. It was just like a nightmare she could remember even now, Weasley received fifty points for game of chess, like the chess was part of Hogwarts' curriculum... Granger for use of logic, as if no one else used logic besides her. Longbottom for whatever it was and Potter for courage.

Sure they might have said that Snape was unfair to other Houses, but so were other professors towards Slytherins rarely awarding with points and taking them gladly away. Slytherins eared the house cup and it was taken away at the last possible moment without any explanation. The whole Slytherin House was stunned at the sheer unfairness.

It got only worse in the second year when Dumbledore repeated the whole thing giving Potter and Weasley even more points. It could have something to do with those attacks on Muggleborns, but two hundred points? What could two second years do to earn so many points?

Thankfully the third year was quite okay if one doesn't count the Firebolt Harry received. It's natural that Slytherins thought he received it from Dumbledore to ensure that Gryffindor would win the quidditch cup. The most Slytherins gave up trying to show teachers that they were any good. It was just pointless.

In the forth year Harry Potter managed to cheat his way into the Triwizard Tornament and ruin the reputation of Hogwarts. But she thought it was Dumbledore who did it, so that the Golden Boy would get more attention. Perhaps Potter even asked the old and obviously senile wizard to do so.

And then Voldemort was back and she didn't even look in Harry's direction, because she had to worry about her own life. She was afraid that somebody would kill her just like Voldemort killed her parants. The year was horrible enough without that toad of a DADA professor. Tracey knew that Voldemort had returned and she felt horrible seeing that the Ministry was in denial. And that was the only year she actually had something positive to say about Harry Potter. She was glad that he at least was doing something. Not that he got any less arrogant...

Tracey knew that it wasn't the time to think about these things, they were in the tomb full of undead, for Merlin's sake, but after Harry healed her she felt so grateful that she couldn't help but think about him. She hadn't really paid attention to his behavior in this world. Sure she noticed that he wasn't what she expected, but she didn't have time to think about it. He was decent enough company and that was what mattered.

But now she could see that he was shy around people. He was clueless about many obvious things, as if he was living in isolation. He had some problems with self-esteem, since he almost never argue with her when she insulted him. And she did it a lot just because she always wanted to pay back for all the unfairness she encountered in Hogwarts.

But the most important thing, he was everything but an attention seeker. He almost never spoke about himself. Sure he did when her insults would get better of him, but the most of time he was talking about Hermione and just how great she was. He sounded like love-struck idiot except he clearly stated that he wasn't in love with Hermione and Tracey believed him now, when she thought about it. He just admired her. Just like he admired a lot of other people and friends. It was like he thought that _he_ wasn't worth to be their friend. It was very unsettling discovery and she realized that she might have misjudged him greatly.

"Look," she heard him saying. "There is light there."

She shook her head and got out of her thoughts. They were standing in a small dark square hall, the ancient walls decorated with some writings and pictures. Each side had a door they could take to continue the exploration of the tomb. However there was a light behind one of the doors.

"Maybe it's a trap," she said.

"I think it's what we were searching for."

"Or both. Let's approach it carefully," she suggested. They were wandering the labyrinth for hours already and were quite tired after having to fight hordes of undead two times since the moment, when she had almost lost her finger.

"Alright," Harry said casting a shield around them.

It was a room with a large round dais in the centre that was illuminated by the light that was coming from the glowing stone at the ceiling. In the middle of the dais they saw a black marble altar. They hesitated to approach it since there was a long silver knife stuck in the skeleton's chest and they felt and saw energies coming from it forming a powerful barrier around two statues made out of the same stone as the altar. Both statues held something in their hands and when Harry conjured a bit more light they saw a book and a staff.

"The book may be exactly what we're looking for," Harry said his eyes almost shining with anticipation.

Tracey shared his emotions, but wasn't as optimistic as Harry. "But it's obvious that there are wards tied on the knife. And I'm unsure if it's a good idea to overpower it, because the destruction of the barrier may very well destroy the book."

"The handle of the knife isn't shielded," Harry noted.

"Yes," Tracey agreed. "I'm certain that it's not a mistake. Let me study the wards for a moment."

Harry nodded and she casted a charm to study the knife and the wards. A frown appeared on her face when she noticed magical threads tying the knife, the wards and the skeleton. She was sure that to break the barrier they had to pull out the knife, but that would do something to skeleton and after everything she had seen, it was clear that it would awaken this certain undead.

She studied the altar and saw runes inscribed on the marble. She threw a spell at them and read aloud, "Disturb... of Zanashi... unworthy... die at her hand."

"Well, that's creepy," Harry said with a sigh.

Tracey nodded and said, "If we pull the knife out, we'll break the barrier awakening Zanashi. If she was able to keep her powers after the death, I'm not sure I want to fight her."

"But it says about being unworthy. Perhaps we're worthy," Harry argued. "Besides the skeletons we were fighting before were quite easy to destroy. I'm sure we'll manage."

Tracey shook her head. Harry was too eager to get back to their own world and it was affecting his judgement. She was certain that Zanashi would be very difficult to fight. As for being 'worthy', something was telling her that their worth would be judged in battle. But at the same time she knew that it was the only lead they had.

"Let's be ready to apparate," she suggested.

"Okay," he agreed and straightened the shield around them. "If she's too powerful, we'll retreat."

Tracey nodded and pointed her wand at the knife. "Let's do it. **Accio** knife."

As the knife didn't move Harry sighed and said, "Seems it's shielded against summoning charm."

Tracey clenched her teeth in frustration. She was sure that the knife wasn't cursed and it was quite safe to touch it, but at the same time she couldn't help but feel uneasy. "To pull it out using hands is too dangerous," she said.

"I'll do it," Harry said stepping towards the altar.

Before she could stop him, Harry grabbed the handle of the knife and pulled it out jumping off to Tracey. The next moment the skeleton let out a deafening shriek and they felt a surge of power slamming at the shield. The skeleton of Zanashi rose to air and glanced at two wizards with a pair of glowing eyes. The staff, that one of the statues held in hands, was in her hands and it was emanating power.

"You dared to disturb my peace," Zanashi said in a loud voice. "Prove that you're worthy or die."

A mere moment later a powerful red beam slammed at their shield destroying it as if it was nothing.

"**Bombarda Maxima**!" Tracey shouted leaping to the side dodging the beam.

Harry didn't waste his time either crying out, "**Expulso! Confringo**!"

"Curious," the undead said shielding herself without any visible effort. Then she disappeared and before either of the pair could react a voice behind Harry whispered, "**Entoli**."

As Harry fell down to his knees, Tracey cursed loudly. She was horrified that the dead sorceress could catch Harry unaware, but she was a bit relieved that she didn't kill him. She recognized the spell Zanashi used. It was an ancient mix of Imperio curse and Legilimency. The spell was almost impossible to execute, however neither Imperio nor Legilimency were known three thousand years ago. Nowadays it was almost never used, since wizards prefered modern specialized spells. But wizards of old used Entoli and only those on the level of Dumbledore could perform it. The battle was hopeless from the beginning.

"Magnificent," Zanashi said passing her hand over Harry's head. "I didn't expect to be awakened by travelers from another world."


	8. Chapter 8: Zanashi's kiss

**A/N:** Poor Harry... :)

* * *

**HARRY POTTER AND THE BURNING HELLS**

**by CreatorZorah**

**Chapter 8: Zanashi's kiss**

Tracey knew that they were in trouble, seeing as Harry obviously was unable to fight the curse. And it was understandable, it was much stronger than Imperio, mostly because it worked differently. Tracey was surprised to notice that Zanashi was slowly gaining a ghosly but tangible naked body. Tracey wasn't sure if the sorceress was this beautiful or just took this appearance. The undead had a long black hair, deep dark-brown eyes and a face that strongly reminded Tracey of Cho Chang.

What was worse is that there were anti-apparation wards in place, so Tracey wouldn't be able to get to Harry and quickly disapparate with him.

"Surprised?" Zanashi said, strocking Harry's hair with her hand. "I'm draining the boy's energy to appear less... gaunt. Don't worry he'll be fine, his regeneration ability is remerkable."

"You... won't kill us?" Tracey asked not sure how to act around ancient and very powerful sorceress.

"No," the undead answered, embracing Harry. "Although you didn't prove yourself to be very strong, you're young and have a great potential. Besides I can't kill the first visitors from the other world, can I?"

Tracey frowned, hating to see her newfound friend like this. "Then, would you, please, release him?"

"Ah... sorry, can't do that," the sorceress said smiling. "He's so young and powerful... I'd rather keep him to myself." To Tracey's disgust Zanashi made Harry turn his head and passionately kissed him on his lips. "So soft and sweet and full of blissful life! It makes me feel alive again."

Tracey paled. She knew that she was no match for the sorceress and if Zanashi decided to keep Harry there wasn't much she could do. "Please," she whispered. "We just want to get back home."

"Why would that matter to me?" Zanashi asked and sighed. "But I'll free him if you help me."

"What do you want?" Tracey asked hopefully.

"I'm tied to this world, cursed to exist as a restless undead. I want to be free of this existence," Zanashi said, her voice trembling with anger. "They tried to seal my soul into an orb of power so that my power would serve them, but I escaped. Too late, however. I'm a mere shadow, only a small piece of soul is connected with my remains. I knew that I didn't have much time left, so I used all remaining time to create this crypt."

"Why?"

"You aren't first to come here," she said. "You fought the undead on the way here. They were less fortunate people who attempted to learn the secrets of this place. I looked for those who're strong enough to return the orb to me. However, I wasn't visited by strong warriors."

Tracey began to understand her, however there were things that bothered her. "But you said I'm not strong. Besides where would I find the orb?"

Zanashi hovered to Tracey and passed a hand over her hair. "You're right, little girl, you aren't powerful enough, but you're better than anyone who was here and... you can find allies that would help you in your quest." The undead moved to the altar and opened a hidden cavity. There was a small chest. As Zanashi opened it, she continued, "I'll allow you to use my gold."

Tracey accepted it seeing no reason to decline. Gold would help either way. "And if I won't be able to do it?" she asked.

"Then your friend will stay here forever," the undead said. "I'm sure he'll be a good company. Once I'm tired of him, he'll join the guard."

Tracey shuddered. That wasn't a fate she would wish upon him. She had to get him out of this situation. "You didn't answer my question about the location of the orb," she said.

Zanashi didn't say anything, she just touched her forehead and after a moment of complete darkness, images invaded her mind. At first she tried to resist, but then Tracey understood that the sorceress was merely showing her the location of the orb. She saw the orb itself, ancient stones, a dungeon, located... somewhere in the ruins of some large city. Tracey made sure to remember everything she was shown.

"There is the part of my soul. I feel it in the heart of Viz-Jun," Zanashi said once Tracey could see with her eyes. "Once the greatest city, now in ruins."

"Where is this city?" Tracey asked.

"It lies in East, beyond the Twin Seas," the sorceress answered and glanced at Harry. "He wields my staff. Take it while he has no need. Once near, with the staff in your hands you'll feel the orb. You're lucky, it seems that the orb isn't in the hands of powerful sorcerers for the first time. Maybe you'll succeed despite your lack of power."

Tracey's eyes widened and she exclaimed, "If it's beyond the Twin-Seas I'll need at least a month to get there! I won't leave Harry with you for more than two months!"

Zanashi laughed and hovered over to Harry again taking him in her hands. "You don't have a choice, little girl. Either you do this or he'll be mine until I leave this world," she said stroking his hair. "But you can get there faster riding the fascinating broom of yours."

That was true, on the broom she could get there in about... five days. But still she wasn't sure if it would be wise to leave him for two weeks with this tart. "If you remember he's alive and needs to drink and eat."

The sorceress shook her head and smiled. "I can keep him alive and well using arcane energies. It's not difficult at all and you should know that, since you read my book."

Tracey gritted her teeth knowing that the sorceress was right. "Harry is better suited for this quest. He's more powerful. Take me instead and let him find the orb."

"And who will entertain me while he's away? You? I'm sorry, little girl, but I prefer men," the sorceress said. "Now take the staff and leave, I'm tired of talking to you."

Tracey wanted to curse the undead, but knew that it would be a terrible mistake. The sorceress was way too powerful and she had Harry as a hostage. It was horrible to feel useless and helpless. Zanashi seemed to pay no attention to the young witch, clearly uninterested in talking anymore. Tracey forced herself to get Harry's staff and turn away from him. Then she left the chamber, promising silently that she would return as quickly as possible to free him.

Once outside she felt that she could disapparate, but before she did it, she heard Zanashi saying, "Now kiss me, Harry, take away the cold of death, gift the warmth of life and bless me with the light of love once more before I find my end..." Bloody poetic tart.

When she appeared in her room she fell to her bed and began to cry. She felt like she betrayed Harry, left him in the time of need, left him with an undead and only Merlin would know what the sorceress would do to him. Tracey hated herself for it, but couldn't think of any other way out. She had to get the orb as fast as possible and hope that Harry would forgive and understand her.

* * *

In the meantime in the darkness of Zanashi's crypt Harry woke up from the spell-induced dream-like state and found himself kissing some ghostly woman, his arms were embracing her naked body dangerously close to the most interesting things. He instantly reddened and jumped off from her.

"What the hell?" he exclaimed failing to keep himself from glancing towards the beautiful body of the ghost.

"Harry, why don't you get back to me," the woman said seductively, hovering to him. "I was really enjoying the kiss."

Looking around he realized that he was in the crypt and as he tried to remember how he got in this situation he recalled being cursed from behind by the undead sorceress. "You're Zanashi, aren't you?" he asked.

"Yes, I am."

"What did you do to me and where is Tracey?" he asked trying to reach for his wand or staff only to discover that he had neither.

"You? I only made you kiss me a few times, that's all," she answered putting her arms around his neck. "And your friend? She's fine. She went back to wherever you came from, once I gave her gold and the book. She left you behind with me."

Harry felt as if he was stabbed with a knife to his back. Did she really leave him? He glanced at the statue and saw that there was no book in its hands. Was she saying truth? No, Tracey may not like him, but she wouldn't leave him. "I don't believe you," he said.

Zanashi smiled at him in amusement and said, "You may not believe me, but she really left you for gold," she said and touched his forehead. A foreign memory flooded his mind. He saw Tracey taking chest full of gold and then he saw her leaving the chamber. "See? It's exactly as I said."

But Harry didn't want to believe it. He didn't know Tracey for long, however he knew that she was anything but a traitor. "I'm sure it's a false memory, or you just manipulated her into doing so."

The sorceress scowled, but relaxed a few moments later. "You're stubborn as a mule."

Harry shrugged and said, "So I was told."

"She didn't leave you," Zanashi said suddenly. "She's doing some errands for me."

He narrowed his eyes and hissed, "Because you took me as a hostage, right?"

"Yes," she answered looking him in the eye. "But don't be angry with me. Try to be stuck in the this crypt for thousands years unable to find true peace, to embrace true death. Once she helps me to pass on, you'll be free."

Harry shuddered. He wouldn't want to stay alive as an undead for so long. He would want to see his parents and precious people. "You could just ask for help," he said.

She shook her head. "I decided to go the safer route."

"Is what you asked her dangerous?" Harry asked.

"Maybe," Zanashi whispered.

When he heard her saying that, he turned around and ran towards the exit, but felt a tug that pulled him back to the sorceress again. "She needs my help!" he exclaimed.

"You will not get away from me. Even if you'd have your wand, you wouldn't be able to cast a simplest charm. All your magic is mine right now."

He closed his eyes and hung down his head. "Please," he begged. "Let me go. I'll do whatever you ask. Anything. I won't forgive myself if something happens to her."

"Anything?" she asked slyly. "So tempting, but... no. I can't afford to be trusting and lose the only opportunity in so many years to be freed."

Harry clenched his fists. He was very angry at himself for getting into this sitation. It was his fault Tracey had to do whatever the sorceress needed. If he wasn't that weak, nothing would happen. If he hadn't touched the knife, if he hadn't sat on that crate... Too many ifs.

"We have a few weeks of time together," the sorceress said. "Do you want me to teach you? I know you were struggling with the meditation. You'll get it in no time under my guidance."

Harry thought about it and decided that if he couldn't get to Tracey, he would do something useful at least. So he answered, "Yes, I want you to teach me."

"Good," the sorceress said grinning. "But for each lesson you'll have to pay."

"I don't have..." he began but then frowned. "Why would you need gold?'

The ghost-like woman laughed and answered, "I didn't mean gold. Kiss me to get the first lesson. Kiss me with all passion you've got. Make me feel alive and loved."

Harry blinked and blushed furiously realizing that all the time he was speaking to the dead, but still somewhat alive and very beautiful naked woman. And now she was asking him to kiss her with passion? Hell, it was just his damn luck.


	9. Chapter 9: The demon hunter

**A/N: **I advise you to google for "Diablo Sanctuary Map". I have to warn you that I didn't read and will not read Diablo books or some kind of expanded universe. Not interested.

This chapter will introduce the first "playable character".

* * *

**HARRY POTTER AND THE BURNING HELLS**

**by CreatorZorah**

**Chapter 9: The demon hunter**

She wouldn't make it to Kurast in three days. Tracey realized that as she flew south to the Strait of Twin Seas, that was connecting the Inner Sea and the Outer Sea. Two continents were there just mere kilometres apart. It reminded her of the Strait of Gibraltar, with the Eastern Continent as Africa and the Western as Europe. To fly straight over the Outer Sea would be a suicide.

The broom was fast, but not nearly as stable as Nimbus or Cleansweep and it was very tiring to fly for multiple hours. Five hours in the air with two two-hours-long stops were her daily limit. And if she didn't want to fall off the broom she had to restrain herself from flying any faster and longer. She didn't even reach the Strait in a single day, had to set up a heavily warded camp for a night in the middle of desert.

And the next morning it got even harder because of the sleepless night. She couldn't help but think about Harry and her quest, dangers of the deserts and the snorkacks, which were the Fallen Ones as one of the books in the library called them. It didn't help that she saw a few quite horrible huge monsters while flying over the deserts. The world was a horrible place!

Around the midday she reached the Strait and decided to rest for a hour before flying over the water. Tracey was frustrated that it was taking so long to get there. According to her new calculations she would get to Kurast in six days counting the current day. It was the only large city, located relatively near to the ruins of Viz-Jun. If everything she heard about Viz-Jun was true she would need to hire mercenaries to continue her quest, therefore would spend a few days in Kurast.

She wouldn't be able to use her broom to get from Kurast to Viz-Jun with mercenaries. And that meant boating the river against the current because the road through jungles of Kurast would last forever. If her sources were right the average time needed to get to Viz-Jun was ten days. Ten bloody days! She wouldn't be back to free Harry for almost a month. Tracey shuddered when she thought about how much time she would need if they hadn't made the brooms.

And appart from anything else she felt alone, utterly so. With Harry there was some kind of of normality in her life at Lut Gholein, but without him she felt lost in the strange dangerous world. And being isolated from everyone else flying somewhere in the middle of nowhere made it almost unbearable.

Her stomach made itself known interrupting her thoughts and she sighed. She was hungry. She took a piece of dried meat from the bag and began to chew on it. Not the best meal of her life, but it would do for a few days until she would reach the Kurast. Perhaps the jungles of the Eastern continent would provide her with more diverse food.

Tracey didn't plan to take off for at least a hour, so she decided to invest some time into meditation. She wondered for a moment if Harry would be able to learn something about the sorcery from Zanashi. The thought about the sorceress made her mood even worse. Tracey hoped that the tart didn't lie to her.

Tracey shook her head and glanced at the sea. She was on a sandy beach. It was a sunny day... well, there wasn't a cloudy one since they got here. But sitting there under clear blue sky and playing with fine yellow sand under her feet, glancing at the shiny quiet water made her feel like she was at some prestigious resort. If only Harry was here with her...

She sighed and closed her eyes trying to meditate. She was aware that Harry had some Occlumency training, but he wasn't nearly as good as she, that's why she found the meditation much easier. She was already on the next step. She was trying to feel arcane energies, not that she was any successful though.

A hour later she mounted her broom and continued her journey. She was glad it wasn't stormy, otherwise it would be really difficult to control the broom. Half a hour later she saw the land. Unlike the endless almost lifeless sands of the West, the Eastern continent met her with tropical rainforest full of life. So much green! After her time in Lut Gholein she was glad to see all these rich colours of the jungles. So close, but so different. Most certainly it's the magic at work.

Tracey knew that the jungles were dangerous, so she decided to stay close to the coast even if it wasn't really safer. She was reluctant to sleep deep in the forest and therefore was glad to see a fishing village enclosed with palisade. It was an opportunity to spend a quiet peaceful night, to have some rest in a normal bed not worrying about monsters getting through the wards.

To not scare the villagers Tracey descended from the sky and dismounted her broom. Then she walked towards the gates on foot. When the guards noticed her, she saw them drawing bows, but thankfully not shooting at her. But just in case she put an invisible shield around her.

"Stop there, stranger," a guard shouted at her. "What's your business here?"

She stopped and looked at the man. He was quite tall and broad. The guard was wearing a scale mail, a helm and leather pants with armored boots. He had a short sword in his hand and shield behind his back. He actually looked like a warrior unlike the other guards who looked just like ordinary villagers that took weapons in their hands. "I'm merely seeking a place to stay for a night," she answered.

"Where did you come from?" he asked.

"I came from the Western continent. Lut Gholein."

"That's a long way, sorceress," the guard said eyeing her staff.

"It's the first village on my way. I would be grateful if you'd let me enter and stay for a night before I continue my path to Kurast."

For a few seconds he didn't answer, buit then shouted, "Open the gates!"

"Thank you," she said, relieved that she wouldn't have to sleep outside.

He nodded. "But don't make me regret my decision to let you in, sorceress," he said.

"I won't," she assured him looking at the buildings inside. "Would you be so kind to tell me, where I can rent a room?"

"The tavern," he said. "Just go straight until you see a large building. You won't miss it, it's the only three-storey building in this village," he said and added, "Be careful there. This morning a Viz-Jaq'taar came to the village, but not quite. She looked too young... with those yellow eyes of her. A bit... weird too."

Tracey wondered who was a Viz-Jaq'taar, but didn't say anything nodding thankfully at the advice. Going through the village she was studying it and people that were living there. Unlike the Lut Gholein all buildings here were made out of wood. And it was understandable seeing as the village was located between the endless forest and the Inner Sea. People didn't look as clean and rich too, but she didn't expect the fisher, hunters and warriors to look any different. They were looking at her with a great suspicion.

Soon she stood before the tavern. Just like the guard said, it was hard to miss. She opened the door and looked around. It was dark there, small dull windows were letting only so much light through. The fire pits and candles were practically the only sources of dim light in the hall. She had to not forget to place anti-fire wards in her room before going to sleep.

The majority of clients were probably the locals which were consuming some drinks with alcohol after a long day of work. A few were eating something, but the meals weren't looking promising. They obviously didn't hear here about hygiene. Tracey sighed wishing to be back in Lut Gholein. Then she noticed a human that looked different. In the darkness of the room, the hood was hiding the stranger's face, but Tracey could swear that the person was looking at her, studying her.

It had to be the Viz-Jaq'taar and since the guard said 'she', it was a woman. A young woman. Tracey knew that the hooded woman was dangerous, since she was practically emanating the power. Tracey let out a sigh of relief when the Viz-Jaq'taar lost the interest in studying her and continued to eat her meal. The redhead wasn't sure if she would be able to fight the hooded woman.

As she looked around once again, Tracey scowled when she noticed that every single table was occupied. So she had a choice of sitting with men that were looking at her as if she was a piece of meat, or sharing a table with Viz-Jaq'taar. She wondered if she should just wander around the village for a few hours until some table would be free, but people here were quite suspicious and she didn't want to make them any more nervous. Not that she feared them, no, but she knew that they, probably, had a life hard enough without worrying about weird strangers.

Tracey could rent a room and go there, but she wanted to eat something that wasn't dried meat. So the redhead went to Viz-Jaq'taar. Even if the woman was quite scary, it was a much better choice than the alternative.

"May I sit here?" Tracey asked.

Viz-Jaq'taar looked up and Tracey could see her face for the first time. It was a very young woman indeed, not much older than she. A year or two, perhaps. She had a black hair and yellow, she could swear, glowing, eyes. An old scar was running from her jaw to the cheek. Not a deep one, just an almost faded reminder. And for Merlin's sake, why are all women in this world are so beautiful? Well, not all, but it was getting ridiculous. "You may," the woman said.

"Thank you," Tracey said taking a place at the opposite side of the table. She ordered some vegetables to eat and rent a room, the whole time secretly studying the Viz-Jaq'taar, wondering how a young woman like her could be so scary.

"Why are you starring at me?" the hooded woman asked suddenly.

Tracey blushed. "I was just wondering," the redhead said, "The guard said you were a Viz-Jaq..."

"I'm not," the woman interrupted her. "And as a sorceress you should know that."

"I'm not from one of the clans," Tracey said quickly earning an amused glance.

"Oh? A rogue? Then you're lucky that I'm a demon hunter, not a Viz-Jaq'taar."

Tracey looked at her with confusion but her meal was brought. As she began to eat, she asked, "May I ask you who are Viz-Jaq'taar?"

"Mage slayers that hunt rogue mages like you," the demon hunter said with a smile.

The redhead paled and whispered, "But I'm not a rogue mage. I didn't have a clan in first place."

"Relax, they won't hunt you down. I'm Selia, by the way."

"Tracey. Why did the guard think you're Viz-Jaq'taar?"

"We do not often appear in these places and my appearance is similar to one of assassins," Selia explained. "My turn to ask. What brings you here?"

"A place to sleep. I'm heading to Kurast. You?"

"We heard about demons attacking villages in these lands. I came to investigate," the hunter answered. "There is a smaller fishing village to the east, three days of walk from here. Everyone was killed. Men, women, children."

"Morgan, was that a work of demons?"

"So say the people, but I'm unsure, have to see it with my own eyes," Selia answered. "Who is Morgan if I may ask? A god?"

"A powerful witch of old," Tracey answered and hesitated for a few seconds before suggesting, "If you want, I'll take you tomorow with me to the village. If it's three days of walk, we'll reach it in a few hours by my means. I'm heading in the same direction anyway."

"You would?" the hunter asked surprised. "I'd appreciate it. Thank you."

"It's not a problem," the redhead said.

It was so good to talk to someone. The demon hunter sounded like a good person and a good company. If only she would accompany her to the Viz-Jun... Tracey was sure that the hunter would be very helpful with all that power she was emanating. The redhead though back of Harry and wondered how was he.

Unknown to her, at the same time, almost thousand kilometres to the West, in an ancient tomb, an ancient ghosty sorceress was lying on a conjured bed with a certain raven-haired boy in her arms. She was quite pleased with herself, while the boy looked irritated.

"For the next lesson, Harry," the undead said smiling. "Take off your clothes."

"No," he answered.

"Oh come on, my dear apprentice, do you feel shy before the dead woman? No one will remember that and I saw you without clothes anyway, so what's your problem? Besides do you want to stop our lessons? It's because of me, you can feel the arcane energies. I'll teach you to tap into it and use it not instinctively like you do, but to get the energy under control. And the price is just to make me feel your warmth, your love. Is that so hard? Why are you so cruel?"

"You're a pervert."

"I'd like to see you after three thousand years without a woman," she said and caught his lips with hers in a long kiss. "So sweet..."

"Don't know, I've managed until now," he said.

"Are you saying that you never was with a woman?" she asked as her eyes widened in surprise. "I'll be your first."

"I'll strangle you, if you demand that for the next lesson," he said. "I'm not going to do it with a dead woman."

"We'll see," the sorceress whispered touching his ear with her lips.

He sighed, she would drive him mad. "Zanashi, you're... well, you're beautiful, I won't lie. But you're a skeleton and your body is just an illusion."

"It's not an illusion," she answered, "I wouldn't feel your warmth otherwise. I would feel nothing at all. It's a real body I created with magic."

"But still... It's not real."

"Nothing is real," she noted.

Harry rolled his eyes and said, "I don't want to get into a philosophical debate." Then a thought came to his mind. "I wondered, you're a very powerful sorceress. How could they do that to you? I mean to force you..."

Suddenly she disengaged from him and he was startled as she teleported to the other side of the chamber looking away from him. Has he said something wrong to her?

"I was betrayed," she whispered almost silently, but he heard her. "By the man I loved. He was my husband and I trusted him. That was my mistake." Then she glanced at him and said, "Do not trust anyone, everyone will betray you in time. They always do."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't need your pity," she hissed sending beams of violet flame towards a statue destroying it in her irritation. "I was forced to tie myself to this thrice damned tomb to save my soul." She closed her eyes and said, "Let's not speak of the past. Let's start the lesson, my apprentice."


	10. Chapter 10: Badly attached things

**Author's notes:**

I'm considering to change the location of the orb to some unknown place, since I fear that Viz-Jun will be introduced in some addon completely ruining the story.

* * *

**HARRY POTTER AND THE BURNING HELLS**

**by CreatorZorah**

**Chapter 10: Badly attached things**

"I want to eat!"

Zanashi sighed. The brat was getting annoying with his constant demands of real meals. More importantly he dared to refuse to go any further than kisses and embraces. Not that she really wanted it, kisses were enough to feel the pleasurable warmth and to drain a bit of his life-force. A year more or less, it wouldn't matter for him in the end, because he had a few hundred years to live if he would want. She couldn't help but do it, since it was in her nature. She was an undead.

Her annoyance, however, was caused by being unused to rejections. She teased him, having a lot of fun, but his rejections hurt. She knew that for an undead it wasn't really surprising to be rejected, but still Zanashi was saddened that she couldn't even seduce a young hormonal teen.

"You don't need to eat, Harry," she reminded him.

"But I want to. A real meal," he demanded.

"There is no need to act so childish. I know that you're just trying to get out of here to join your female friend."

He sighed. "I can't help but think about her, Zanashi. You have to understand."

"I do, but think about it. How would you find her?" she asked. "By now your friend is days away. What is the chance to meet her accidentally?"

"You're right, but... I won't forgive you if something happens to her."

"Your friend is resourceful. She'll manage."

"Yes, that she is," he agreed. "But that doesn't change the fact I want to eat."

She growled and gave in to his demands. "Alright, I'll command a few skeletons to get something to eat for you."

"Thank you," Harry said. "Eh... Zanashi, I was thinking..."

"Yes?"

"All these undead here in this tomb. I didn't really realize that until now, but you... killed them. That's hundreds of men and women. Just to save your own soul."

Zanashi scowled and said, "I didn't drag them here. I didn't force them to fight me, I didn't force them to fight the undead I controlled. It was their own choice to plunder my tomb. The graves of the dead shouldn't be disturbed. If they were foolish and greedy enough to come here for treasures then it was their own fault that they found their death."

He didn't answer for a few minutes and then said, "Well, that's reasonable, I guess. But there is one more thing that bothers me. You're very powerful as you are, why don't you go for the orb yourself or send your dead warriors after it?"

"My powers are tied to this place," she explained. "The further from the altar the less powers I have. And I am not really powerful, Harry. Strong enough to defeat you, but that's all. The moment you touched the knife I took your energy and began to feed on your magic. I'm powerful because you're powerful."

"Won't it somehow reflect on my abilities?" he asked.

"No, you silly. You'll gain all your powers back..." She blinked and added, "Almost."

He jumped off the bed and exclaimed, "What does that mean?"

Zanashi smiled, trying too look innocent, and answered, "You have to understand that it was an accident. The small thing was so badly attached to your body, that I kind of absorbed it accidentally."

"Badly attached?" he asked in horror. "What did you absorb?"

"I believe you would notice if I had absorbed _that_..." she deadpanned.

"I didn't mean_ that_," he said rolling his eyes.

Zanashi smiled. "It was a piece of some dark soul. Not sure what that thing was. I hope it was nothing important to you."

Harry sighed. "You've got me lost. I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about."

That got her confused. Had he really no idea about the piece of soul that had been attached to the scar on his forehead? It's like missing the mountain Arreat standing at its foot. But then again magi of his world were quite clueless about magic. The moment she got him under Entoli, she absorbed the piece of soul... not really accidentally, quite the opposite. She deemed it dangerous to her and decided to not risk. Besides it made her more powerful and Zanashi could feel for the first time that she actually could exist outside of the tomb. She would be powerless, but still...

She didn't want to tell him that though. Zanashi had assumed that he was using it as a power source, but now he was saying that he had no idea about its existence... She wished she could read all his memories and not just things he believed to be important.

"The scar on your forehead," she said. "It contained a piece of soul."

His eyes widened in realization. "Voldemort's soul?"

"Ah, that Dark Lord I saw in your memories," she said nodding. "Perhaps."

"Well, that makes sense," he said shuddering from the thought that a piece of that monster was inside of him all the time. "I always wondered why I had a connection with that monster, could see through his eyes. If there was a piece of his soul, I'm actually glad that I got rid of it. But does that mean that you have it now?"

"No, it was destroyed and converted in a sort of a power source," she said. "I think we can continue our lesson."

"I have one more question before that," harry said.

Zanashi rolled her eyes and nodded. "Ask."

"Can you help us get back to our own world?" Harry asked.

"In my current state I can't summon a portal to your world. Even if I get the orb and regain the lost part of my soul, my powers are limited. I'm an undead. But everything you need is in the book I'll give you after your friend brings the orb. I'll explain you some of it too," she answered. "You'll need some time to learn about portals, but you two will find a solution."

"Thanks," Harry said. "Let's continue our studies."

* * *

"Is that your... tool?" Selia asked looking at the broom with confused expression.

Tracey sighed and answered, "Yes, it works like this." With that she mounted the broom and flew around for a few seconds.

"Is it... safe?" the demon hunter questioned, still being unsure if she should use such an obscure way to travel.

Tracey smiled reassuringly. "If we don't fly too fast, it's perfectly safe, Selia. Even if something happens, I can slow our fall down and we'll be perfectly okay. Come on, get on the broom."

Selia looked at her with hesitation, but mounted the broom and a few moments later Tracey took off feeling as Selia clutched at her with everything she had.

"Fear of heights?" Tracey asked accelerating towards the attacked village.

"No, fear of weird things that shouldn't fly," the demon hunter answered. "I'd be much calmer if it was you who would levitate me. But a broom..."

"Relax, and enjoy the flight. We'll be alright."

Selia stayed silent for a few minutes and the redhead noticed that she actually relaxed and got much calmer. Tracey could understand her distrust in the broom, anyone unfamiliar with this kind of magic would be wary. The idea of a flying broom was just... ridicolous.

"Why are you traveling to Kurast by the way?" Selia asked suddenly.

"Actually my destination is Viz-Jun," Tracey answered. "I wanted to hire some mercenaries in Kurast."

"Viz-Jun is a dangerous place," the demon hunter noted. "Ever since the fall of the city, dangerous creatures corrupted by minions of the Burning Hells are living there."

Tracey wasn't really sure what the Burning Hells was, but decided to not voice it. "I know," she answered. "But I need to get there. The life of my friend depends on it."

"Your friend?" Selia asked. "What happened to him? Is he there?"

"No," Tracey answered, but wasn't sure if she could tell the demon hunter about the orb. In the end she decided to trust the demon hunter. "We were investigating an ancient tomb in the deserts near Lut Gholein, hoping to find a way home, but it was a trap set up by the ancient undead sorceress. She defeated us as if we were helpless kittens and took my friend as a hostage. He's the only person I've got, I have to help."

"That's a very disturbing story," the demon hunter exclaimed. "I'll help you defeat her and free your friend, if you allow me."

Surprised by her words, Tracey said, "Eh... thanks, but I think the sorceress didn't really mean any harm. She just wants to be freed."

"You shouldn't trust a word of a restless spirit. They're selfish, cruel and treacherous beings. If you want to see your friend alive, you should hurry. What did she ask you to do?"

The redhead paled and began to worry about Harry again. Why did she trust the words of an undead so easily? "To bring her an orb of power, where a part of her soul is sealed," she answered. "And the orb is at Viz-Jun."

"If you want, I'll accompany you to the Viz-Jun after we investigate the village. This way you won't waste your time for mercenaries."

Stunned, Tracey asked, "Why would you do all this for me?"

Selia didn't answer for a few seconds, before saying, "Because I know the pain of losing someone dear to you and from how you talked about him I can say that he is important to you. I don't want anyone to feel the same pain if I can prevent it. We'll save your friend before the darkness claims him."

"Thank you, Selia. I can't express how grateful I am. What about the village?"

"I'm here to investigate, not to fight. But we'll see once we get there."

For a few minutes they didn't say a word to each other, both deep in thoughts, before Tracey asked, "May I ask you what demon hunters do? Is it some kind of organization?"

"No," Selia said resting her jaw on Tracey's shoulder.. "It's not really an organization. We're all survivors of demon attacks on villages. I was found as a child, as a lone survivor. They took me in and trained."

"Do you use some kind of magic to fight... demons?" the witch asked.

"Depends on how you define magic. I'm not a sorceress, but I channel hatred into my body, tools and weapons. Like this crossbow bolt, for example," she said handing it carefully to Tracey while clutching with the other hand the redhead's shoulder. "The runes engraved on them make the bolt explode while my hatred powers them."

Tracey glanced at the bolt and frowned. "Using hatred is dangerous. Hate leads to..."

"Destruction and Destruction begets Terror as Terror begets Hate and Hate begets Destruction," Seila interrupted her. "I know the dangers of using my hatred."

"I wasn't going to say 'destruction', but your words fit as well," Tracey said wondering where she read these words. She could swear that some history book she deemed to be a fairytale said something like this, but to think about it during the flight wasn't a good idea.

"We're trained to maintain the balance, to temper our hatred with discipline," the demon hunter explained.

"You can easily lose yourself while using negative emotions."

"Some of us do lose themselves," Selia agreed. "That's the danger we all face."


	11. Chapter 11: Hatred

**A/N: Since the whole thing gets too bloody and sexy, I'm upgrading the rating to M.**

This chapter contains a bit of Lore, so that people unfamiliar with the Diabloverse would understand things.

* * *

**HARRY POTTER AND THE BURNING HELLS**

_by CreatorZorah_

**Chapter 11: Hatred**

"There!" Selia said pointing with a finger.

Tracey nodded and began to descend closer to the ground to be able to see what happened in the village... or, better said, in the remains of the village. The forest here was much closer to the palisade, which was much less impressive. Not as tall, the trunks were much less massive and chunks of the palisade was completely crushed.

However, when they got closer Tracey couldn't help but turn away in horror barely able to keep herself from throwing up. There were sharpened tree trunks and spikes with people impaled on them. Women, men and children. Whoever massacred the village, didn't spare anyone.

"Let's get to the ground," Selia said.

Tracey didn't argue. "That's terrible. This has to be the work of demons, right?"

"I'd like to say that humans are incapable of doing something like this," the demon hunter said as they dismounted the broom in the middle of the village. "But that would be a lie."

There were bodies and their parts everywhere and... so much blood. The sigh was maddening, terrifying and the redhead couldn't help but fall to her knees, trembling in terror.

"But this is a deed of demons," the raven-haired woman said seemingly undisturbed. "There is demon blood on the ground. The villagers fought well but were quickly overwhelmed."

Tracey glanced at Selia unable to understand how the demon hunter could be so calm seeing more than hundred corpses of people who all died a horrible death. She caught a sight of a woman's head impaled on a spike and hurriedly shut her eyes. Suddenly she found herself in arms of the demon hunter.

"I know it's hard," Selia said, passing her hand over Tracey's head.

"How... how c-can you be so calm?" Tracey choked.

"It's been years since I saw a first village that looked like this. I've seen a lot since then," the demon hunter explained. "Look at me, in my eyes." As Tracey complied, Selia continued, "I feel your fear, Tracey. But you don't have to fear them, I can feel your power, you're stronger than they are. Feel the rage and righteous anger towards those who did this. Direct your emotions into the hatred, for the innocents will be avenged."

"Why are you telling me this?" Tracey asked finding that Selia's words were actually working. The witch knew that the demon hunter somehow got into her mind and her first instinct was to raise shields, but somethings stopped her. The redhead could feel the seething rage, that was consuming her fear. She was a witch and she had worked hard to become strong. She couldn't save the innocents, for they were dead, but she could avenge and stop the demons from hurting others. Everything in her demanded the vengeance.

"To help you. That's the way I'm coping with it," the demon hunter answered. "I can feel your rising hatred. Do not lose yourself to it. Control it, do not let it rule you. Save it for the demons. Believe me, the innocents will be avenged."

Tracey closed her eyes and raised her mental shields to take the hatred under control, then she took a deep breath and said, "I'll help you, Selia."

"You're learning fast, you would be a great demon hunter, Tracey."

The redhead smiled weakly and shook her head. "Perhaps, but I prefer the sorcery."

Selia nodded and stood up, saying, "Let's go, there is a trail I can follow."

"Will we be able to defeat them?" Tracey said her worries returning for a moment.

"I wouldn't risk it alone, but I'm confident that we'll succeed together," the demon hunter said.

As Tracey followed Selia through the village, every victim she saw caused to get more and more angry at the demons, but Occlumency helped to stay uninfluenced by the emotions. She understood what Selia meant by tempering the hatred with discipline. Hatred could make her more powerful, but was she comfortable with it? No... hate, anger, these aren't the emotions she was ready to use. They caused way too many witches and wizards to fall to the darkness.

Still, she would try to release the emotions, she had gathered, in the battle with the demons. Tracey knew that she would probably need everything she had to stay alive in battle with beings who could slaughter entire villages.

Then it hit her: what was she thinking? Harry needed her help, but she was going with some woman she met a day ago to hunt demons that killed people she didn't know. Where was her head? Why was she risking her and consequently Harry's life by doing something like this? Harry was her priority, she had...

"There were multiple lesser demons there. About twenty, but I need more time to estimate the number more precisely," the demon hunter interrupted her thoughts as they left the village and entered the forest. "But it's unmistakably that the one who controls them is a demon of terror. The state of the village is intended to strike terror into those who sees it. It has to be Diablo's minions..." She stopped and asked, "Why do you look so worried suddenly?"

Tracey hesitated for a moment before saying, "It's my friend. I feel like betraying him by..."

"Don't worry," Selia interrupted her placing reassuringly a hand on Tracey's shoulder. "We'll find the demons today, kill them and go directly to Viz-Jun."

Tracey nodded still not sure if she was doing the right thing. As they resumed to follow the trail, she asked, "Could you tell me about the Burning Hells and demons? I read about it, but some texts tell the same story in completely different light and I don't know what I should believe."

Selia raised an eyebrow and asked with a smile, "Did you live under a rock?"

Could she trust her saying that she was from a different world? Probably, but she couldn't risk it. "You may say so. We lived in isolation and had no idea about the outer world."

"Well, that explains," the demon hunter muttered. "Do you know about the Great Conflict?"

"Yeah, something about demons fighting angels. I thought it was... a fairytale of some sort," Tracey answered.

"I wish it were," Selia said with a sigh. "There are the Burning Hells, the home of demons and the High Heavens, the birthplace of angels. I can't tell you much about the later, but I can tell you a lot about demons."

"Considering that you're a demon hunter, it's not surprising," Tracey said shrugging.

"The Burning Hells was ruled by three Prime Evils: Diablo, the Lord of Terror; Mephisto, the Lord of Hatred and Baal, the Lord of Destruction."

"You said 'was'," the redhead noted.

Selia didn't answer for a moment, studying earth and plants for signs of the demons. Not that it was necessary, since it looked like a handful of elephants ran through the forest. When she stood up and continued her way, she explained, "They were overthrown by the Lesser Evils: Duriel, the Lord of Pain; Andriel, the Maiden of Anguish; Belial, the Lord of Lies and Azmodan, the Lord of Sin. Exiled to the mortal realm the Prime Evils were spreading chaos and destruction until they were captured inside of Soulstones by the Horadrim, mages selected by Archangel Tyrael."

"Is there any proof that it has actually happened?" Tracey asked.

"Of course. The vast majority... Be careful, there is a very dangerous poisonous snake."

The witch shuddered. She hated poisonous things and therefore hated to wander through the jungles. The redhead was glad that they didn't need to cut through the rainforest, because demons made it quite easy for the pair. But she was still unnerved by the forest.

"Let me cast a spell so that we won't be noticed," Tracey said.

"You mean invisibility?"

"No, we'll be visible, but no one, even animals will notice us, unless we do something stupid."

"Sounds useful, please do it," Selia said and when Tracey placed them under Notice-Me-Not charm, the demon hunter continued, "The vast majority don't know what happened twenty years ago, but we, demon hunters know that Diablo was awakened and consequently defeated, but not for long, he possessed a man, freed Baal and Mephisto before the Prime Evils were finally vanquished again. We don't know if they were defeated completely though."

"And the Lesser Evils?" Tracey asked.

"They're still there, except Andriel," the demon hunter said and stopped. "Now I'm sure there were eighteen weaker demons and four quite dangerous. Some are wounded. Let's fly, I'll be able to follow the trail from the air."

Tracey nodded, unshrank the broom and mounted it, allowing Selia to take a place behind her. When they took off to the air the witch sighed in relief of being outside of the forest and accelerated following the visible trail that demons left behind.

"I have to warn you," Selia said. "I know that you can close your mind. Remember to keep your mental shields up all the time. The weaker demons won't be the problem, but the one who controls them will try to use your fears against you."

"Don't worry," Tracey reassured the demon hunter. "I won't let anyone inside of my mind."

"Even so, he'll know your fears. It will just take more time. No matter what you see, know that you have nothing to fear. He'll try to manipulate you with illusions and words, don't let him win. Try to push your greatest fears in the deepest places of your mind. Just remember all the innocents he killed and direct your hate at him."

"I'll try," the redhead said.

The rest of the way they remained silent both trying to mentally prepare themselves for the confrontation. Tracey recalled the first time she fought the demons. Those were very weak, she and Harry defeated them without any problems, but the demons, they would face soon, were much more stronger. She hoped that she wasn't making a mistake following the demon hunter, for is she'd die, Harry's fate would be sealed as well.

About a hour later they saw hills and Selia pointed at the rocks where they saw the end of the trail they were following. They descended to the ground few hundred metres away from it and dismounted the broom. The demon hunter gestured to be silent and follow her. Tracey complied, but used a few charms to make their movements silent. Notice-Me-Not was still in place, but the redhead decided to strengthen it a bit just in case.

Soon they were standing before a large dark mouth of a cave. On the entrance there was two spikes with impaled bodies of young women, but this time Tracey wasn't shocked by the sight. She knew what the demons were capable of. She couldn't help but follow the hunter's advice and direct her emotions into the hatred keeping herself calm using Occlumency.

The demons weren't hiding and that meant they were sure that no one would be able to fight them. Were they overconfident or really strong enough to have no fear of being found and killed? But it didn't matter. It wasn't the right time to have doubts, Tracey was there, before the cave and she couldn't leave the demon hunter to do it alone. Besides she wanted to avenge the innocents. To give a way to the hatred that was burning inside of her behind the mental shields.

Tracey took a deep breath and followed Selia into the cave, hoping that she would live to free Harry. That's when she realized what was her greatest fear at the moment. To be unable to help Harry, to be unable to free him.


	12. Chapter 12: Power

**Author's Notes**: Somehow the story became my longest. I'm quite surprised, since I invested relatively small amount of time. But a chapter for the Prince of Serpents will come out very soon too. :)

Anyway, _thanks for reviews_, everyone! Each review helps me to find some time to write the story :)

* * *

**HARRY POTTER AND THE BURNING HELLS**

**by CreatorZorah**

**Chapter 12: Power**

"_Now, tap into it_," heard Harry Zanashi's voice inside of his head.

It was very disturbing to open his mind to her completely, to allow her access everything. He knew that she could implant false memories, ideas and thoughts, but that was the only way to learn from her during the short time span they had. He hoped that she wouldn't do something bad to his mind. However, he knew that she could do the same thing with his mind completely closed behind Occlumency shields, because the moment he had touched the knife he had fallen under her control. If she had wanted to harm him, Zanashi would do it anyway and there was nothing he could do to stop her.

"_Now, use the power like I taught you... Careful, foolish boy! Take it slower, make it... softer, calm it down, you don't need it to destroy anything. That's right. Now, open your eyes, but concentrate!_"

He opened his eyes and only her lessons made him keep his calm. He was hovering! Just like Zanashi. She taught it to him and he successfully did it! He learned the first useful skill from her! Unable to resist the urge to fly around the room, he began to circle around Zanashi who grew more and more annoyed with her apprentice, but allowed him to enjoy the feeling.

"That's enough," she snapped when he went for the tenth lap. "I'm still waiting for a 'thank you', ungrateful boy."

Harry blushed and hovered quickly to her. "Thank you!" he exclaimed giving her a kiss, that took her completely by surprise, because he never initiated a kiss himself before. After she had recovered from a moment of shock, she answered and enjoyed the first real willing kiss with Harry. It was so hard to resist the undead's nature and keep herself from draining him dry.

"So warm... so full of life... your bliss and joy...so sweet," she whispered, enjoying the taste of his life force on her lips. She hated herself for that, but couldn't resist the urge completely. He lost another five days of his life.

"Did your body get less... transparent?" Harry asked with a frown.

"No," she answered shaking her head. "It's just your imagination."

"Whatever. I didn't believe that I would progress so fast," he said. "You're the best teacher I've ever had."

"Of course I am," she said, embracing him. "The kiss was wonderful."

Harry blushed again and turned away. "Thanks, I guess."

"Let's continue. Now, when you have a primitive control over the power, just think how you can use your first skill in sorcery."

"Well," he muttered. "I guess, I can levitate things." As he said that he struggled a few dozen seconds to keep himself in the air and levitate his bag from the floor at the same time. When he understood how to do it, the levitation got gradually easier.

"Right, but I want to hear more."

"To push thing away from me?" Harry asked.

"Not just push," she said shaking her head and with a flick of her hand sent the only remaining statue flying into the wall at a shocking speed. "It's a powerful weapon if used right."

"Wow," he uttered. "That's powerful. Why do you even need anything else?"

She smirked. "It won't work against other mages and people with a protection against magics. They'll be able to block it easily. Even your _protego_ will do the job. However, your shield charm isn't nearly as effective as the defence I'll teach you next. You should be able to protect yourself from this power on the instinctive level, otherwise you'll be unable to react in time."

"Wait," Harry said. "I still have got questions about this telekinetic power."

"Telekinetic?" Zanashi repeated. "An interesting word. What do you want to know?"

"The limitations. Are there any?"

"Of course," she answered. "To push as hard as I've done, you need time to gather enough power. The more power you use at once, the more time you'll need to do it. Depends on the amount of power you can keep in your body. And the amount depends the time you invest in training."

"Oh, I see."

"Furthermore, the further from a stable anchor you are, the more power you need to keep yourself in the air."

"That's obvious." Harry nodded

"Any more questions?"

"No," he answered. "I'd like to continue with that defence you wanted to teach me."

"Sure," she said and grinned. "But first I want you naked in the bed."

* * *

"Demons can see in the dark," Selia whispered. "If you can do something to illuminate the cave, do it."

Tracey breathed a sigh of relief, because she was hesitating to use Lumos out of fear to attract unwanted attention. But if demons could see in the dark, trying to hide in darkness was pointless.

"**Lumos Maxima**," she whispered sending a few balls of light, that illuminated the hall.

Though the cave was quite beautiful with all those stalagmites, stalactites and columns, it was scary as hell considering that demons lingered there. The floor of the cave went down to the water and soon they found themselves in the knee-high water. Tracey could see that Selia didn't like that, neither liked she, because the water restricted their movements.

"Be careful, they may be invisible," the demon hunter warned her.

"**Homenum revelio,**" Tracey whispered, but the spell either didn't work or there were no invisible demons. She asked, "How do you detect an invisible enemy?"

"You should watch and listen, feel the presence of the evil."

"Do you feel them?"

"Yes," Selia answered. "And they know we're here. Don't you feel _his _presence in your mind?"

Tracey frowned and discovered in horror that someone was trying to take down her mental shields. It was so subtle, that she almost didn't notice it at all. She started to fight the demon, pushing him out.

"Thanks, I wouldn't notice _him_," the redhead whispered. "I pushed _him_ out."

"Did you?" the demon hunter asked. "I wouldn't be so sure. It's a demon of terror, he knows how to get to your fears, he'll know how to terrify you."

"Can you block him?" Tracey asked as she noticed that the demon didn't go away, he just changed the tactics. Instead of taking down her shields he began penetrate them.

"No," she answered sighing in relief as they left the water. "But we have some time before he'll get through."

"Will he be able to read my mind?"

"No, we both have quite good metal shields, he'll be only able to get vague idea of our fears. It will be enough though. Beware. Do not let yourself consumed by your nightmares. Keep your head cool and do not believe a word he'll say to you. If something happens, remember that the hate can be your..." She stopped and grabbed a crossbow from her waist. "We're surrounded."

Tracey looked around but saw no one, so she repeated the spell again, "**Homenum revelio**." But again she saw no one. It was frustrating and she had no idea where would an attack come from. That's when suddenly the attack on her mind got much stronger and she began to struggle keeping the demon out of her head. But failed for a moment and she heard a voice in her head.

"_**You're wasting your time.**__**You left your friend, you little traitor. Your friend will die, and it will be your fault. Yours alone, for you killed him...**_" the voice whispered to her. But it wasn't only the voice that stunned her. It were memories of her leaving Harry alone with an undead that overwhelmed her. "**_But what if he's alive? What if he hates you for leaving him alone? _**_**Alone. Alone you'll be, completely alone with no way home. Join me, kill the warrior that has come with you and I'll help you keep your friend alive. Join me and the Burning Hells will grant you way to get back...**_"

That's when she pushed him out of her mind and just in time to see a fat ugly monster almost ten feet tall coming at her with a club that would surely smash her to a pulp. She heard Selia fighting someone but didn't have time to look at her. She raised her staff and shouted, "**Sectumsempra!**" The spell that Harry taught her.

A small cut appeared on the skin of the monster, it bought her a bit time, however, as the demon stumbled. Tracey panicked for a moment, but Selia's words about hatred came to her mind. Right. She wasn't as powerful as Harry, but she had a way to gain more power. "**Sectumsempra!**" she shouted again this time giving a way to her rage. The monster was cut in two, but she didn't have time to rejoice the victory, she had to continue fighting, since there were more demons attacking her. They were faster, larger and deadlier than those she fought in the deserts. Besides she was surrounded and didn't have much room.

To her left Tracey saw the demon hunter rushing with incredible impossible speed at another demon beheading it in one quick movement of her blade, shooting a bolt from her crossbow at the same time at three incoming demons, surprisingly hitting each at the same time. Did she fire a bolt that split under her hatred?

"**Protego!**" Tracey cried out as she saw some kind of liquid flying towards her thrown by a gigantic insect-like creature with four hands and glowing eyes. The redhead was sure that it was the demon of terror. But it wasn't her fight, Selia went after the insectoid. "**Bombarda maxima!**" Tracey exclaimed forcing her hatred into the spell. The bolts came out of her staff and flew at a large group of smaller demons that looked the same as those she and Harry killed in the deserts. Suddenly out of a corner of her eye she saw a scythe coming at her and apparated into the safety before slicing the attacker with another cutting curse.

But it was the Selia's fighting that captivated her. She was moving faster than any human being could imagine, she did acrobatic things in the air that were just impossible for human body and it seemed that her weapons lived their own lives. Throwing knives, bolts and her sword were killing a demon after a demon. She was a living death. And doing so she kept fighting the huge demon that clearly was much more dangerous than other monsters.

There weren't many left when Tracey killed two monsters and noticed that Selia finally did a mistake, she missed one of the demons coming from behind her. The redhead knew that the demon hunter would notice it, if the demon would come close to her, but this one was preparing to throw a long spear at the demon hunter from afar. And there was nothing she could do to prevent it already.

The redhead didn't think, she just acted without thinking like a bloody Gryffindor, doing the only thing she could to save Selia from death: she apparated and the moment later the spear slammed into her with overwhelming force. She felt incredible pain for a moment before the world blackened around her and she knew no more...


	13. Chapter 13: Time is a relative thing

**A/N:**I have quite an awful mood thanks to my ex-fiancee and ex-boyfriend, so...

...**if I don't post here anything in two weeks, you can be quite sure that I died while climbing the Mont Blanc for I'm quite bad at climbing. **Don't worry too much though, I've already climbed it successfully once :)

* * *

**HARRY POTTER AND THE BURNING HELLS**

**by CreatorZorah**

**Chapter 13: Time is a relative thing**

It was night, the myriad of insect sounds made it easy for her to assume that. There were voices of some larger animals, but Tracey couldn't match them with any known beasts. She heard firewood crackling to her right and felt warmth of fire. Her, clearly bandaged chest ached, but not badly.

"I'm glad you're awake," she heard Selia's voice and opened her eyes to look at demon hunter sat beside her, stirring something in a pot on fire.

"What happened?" Tracey asked.

"A spear happened," the demon hunter answered.

"Oh... right," Tracey muttered, "I'm alive?"

"Well, of course you are," Selia said with a smile. "But if not for your incredible armour the spear would impale you."

The armour. Thank Merlin they bought and charmed it! "What about the demons?"

"You smashed into him taking him by surprise and I used the opening to kill the bastard. The rest wasn't that tough."

"What?" Tracey asked in confusion. "How did I smash into him?"

"The spear sent you flying right into the demon. Have to say he didn't expect that," she said smiling.

"Oh... how long was I out?"

"A bit more than a day, " the demon hunter answered. "You have a small wound from the spearhead and four broken ribs. The lung is alright. I gave you a healing potion, you should be alright in four or five days."

"Five days?!" Tracey exclaimed trying to get up, but the demon hunter stopped her with a hand.

"Don't stand up until tomorrow, let the ribs heal. Don't worry, you'll be able to fly the broom."

The redhead sighed in relief. "That's good."

"The pottage is ready. Don't sit up, I'll feed you," Selia said.

"Eeh, thank you," the witch said with a blush, having mixed feeling about being so helpless.

The pottage wasn't delicious, but Tracey was hungry and it was nutritious. Being fed by Selia annoyed her, but the only way to heal faster was the spell Harry used to reattach her finger. Tracey wasn't, however, sure if she would be able to cast the spell right. When Harry did it, she wasn't in the right state to pay attention.

"Tracey," Selia said suddenly after Tracey ate her portion. "If we want to fight together, we should work on our teamwork. "

The redhead nodded. "That's true."

"It's quite obvious that you don't have any experience in fighting the demons," the demon hunter continued. "You were good, but not nearly enough."

Tracey scowled. Was that Selia's thanks for saving her life? It was quite hard to believe that the demon hunter would say that after being the one who put her into situation where Tracey had to take the spear to the chest. "I saved you," she said.

"You didn't have to, I knew about the spear and was about to dodge it," Selia said.

"It most certainly didn't look like that."

The demon hunter sighed. "Do I have to remind you that you hit the demon, not me when you was sent flying by the spear? I can be very fast. During the battle I killed five demons which were mere moments away from killing you."

"Alright, next time I won't save you," Tracey huffed.

Selia rolled her eyes. "Tracey, it's not that I do not appreciate your effort, I do. I'm thankful that you took the spear for me even if it wasn't necessary, but the problem is we didn't fought together and sometimes I had a feeling that we were fighting against each other, because during my own fight I had to keep an eye on you while you were on the other side of the cave's hall."

"I'm capable of fighting on my own," Tracey grunted.

"Sure you are, but fighting alone and fighting together are different things. You have to understand that it's not about killing more demons than the other..."

Tracey interrupted her. "I don't give a damn about the number of demons I killed."

"Maybe so, but that doesn't change anything. I'd be happy to leave every demon to you, just providing you necessary support and keeping your back safe. That would be safe and effective. Were you following my lead in the cave you wouldn't need to shield me with your body. Instead you would just cast one of your shields. You could have died."

Tracey wanted to argue but stopped herself and just closed her eyes. She hated to admit that the demon hunter was kind of right. If she'd followed Selia, there would be no need fight alone against all those demons and it would be much easier to help Selia.

"I'll try to be close to you the next time," Tracey said.

"Thank you," Selia said. "Don't take me wrong, I wouldn't be able to defeat them alone. But I'd prefer to act more carefully. I would hate myself if you'd die in the cave."

"But I hope that there won't be any need for the next time."

Selia shrugged. "I don't mind cleansing this world of minions of the Burning Hells and their corruption."

Tracey rolled her eyes. Of course she didn't, being a demon hunter. "How long are you doing it, actually?" she asked.

Selia looked down and answered, "Since I was eight. I've lost my family and sister..."

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to bring that up," the redhead said.

"It's alright," the demon hunter said and continued, "It's been years, but feels like it has happened yesterday. For a long time after the demon hunters took me in it was just training. I began to fight five years ago, when I was fourteen."

"So, you completed your training?" Tracey asked.

"No, not yet, but I hope I'll be ready soon enough." She sighed. "I'm sure my mentor will scold me for going alone... or with you instead of waiting for others."

"I think we did quite a good job."

"Sure, but you know how elders are," Selia said grinning. "He always has something to scold me for."

"I know what you mean," Tracey said smiling back at her.

* * *

"I did it!" Harry exclaimed.

He was looking at a knife that was moving with an awfully slow speed through the air. It was the first time he managed to create a bubble of warped time and space. Inside of the bubble the time flowed very slowly, but he wasn't affected by it.

He reached with his hand for the knife and took it in his hand. It wasn't effortless. The knife still had the inertia and he had to apply some force to take it. Then he felt that he couldn't hold the bubble anymore and released the spell falling down to one knee.

"Well done," Zanashi said and hovered over to Harry, taking him into an embrace. "But you still have much to learn, my young apprentice."

"It... took so much power to do that," he said.

"Of course," she agreed. "You needlessly wasted a lot of arcane energies. You'll have to work on your control more once your friend gets back."

Harry sighed and looked at the altar, unconsciously playing with Zanashi's hair much to her amusement. "You can't stay, can you?" he asked.

For a few seconds she hesitated to answer. She broke the contact and hovered to the altar. "Once my soul is whole again, I'll be able to regain my body and live on..."

"Then..." Harry interrupted her, but she stopped him, shaking her head.

"But I don't want to live on, Harry. I want to end my existence, to pass on. I want to rest from this world, from the violence and betrayal."

"But you're so young!"

Zanashi looked at him in disbelief and burst out laughing. "Oh, Harry. I'm not young."

"I meant at the time you've died," he explained.

"We both wield magic, Harry. Appearance is a relative thing in the world of magic. I was... seventy nine when I died. I didn't live a long live, but I think it's quite enough if you add three millennia in this tomb to that. I suffered enough in this world." The sorceress smiled hovering back to him and said coyly, "Are you saying you want me to stay with you? Enjoyed the last time in our bed didn't you?"

Harry blushed recalling the last 'payment' for the lesson. The moment he got naked in the bed with Zanashi made it impossible for him to resist her anymore. Not that he didn't enjoy what happened next, but he felt uncomfortable because of Tracey. She was doing something dangerous somewhere and he was having fun with the long dead woman. Ew, that sounded so... wrong.

Unknown to Harry and despite how she acted around him, Zanashi was very uncomfortable too, because she took way too much from him. Not just days, not even months. Years. It didn't matter that he still had a few centuries to live if he'd bother. She wasn't entirely herself, there was that annoying and selfish undead part of her that wanted more. Zanashi didn't want to take years of life force from him, but she had done it the moment she had lost concentration.

Zanashi always believed that her willpower was strong, that she would be able to resist the selfish desires of the undead, and she was doing that, but not nearly as effective as she had hoped. And having only a piece of the soul didn't help the matter either.

She hoped that she would be able to control herself better the next time. In the end she wouldn't restrain herself from kissing and having sex with Harry, for the love was the reason she existed as an undead and it was natural to desire these things. Zanashi could only hope that Tracey would find the orb and bring it back before Harry would join her undead guard. He was way too sweat to be wasted like this.

"Well, you're a powerful sorceress," he muttered. "You can do much good and help us get back home."

"No, I won't stay," she said shaking her head. "You'll be much more powerful than me. Don't be selfish and let me rest in peace. The construction of the portal to your own world will take time anyway and with my explanations you won't do it any slower than me."

"But we've got here using a simple scroll," he said.

"Unfortunately, that's the problem. Traveling to your world is extremely difficult, while getting back here is almost effortless. Imagine a river with a heavy current. I'm still unsure why, but traveling to your world is just like going against the current."

"Oh, but we'll do it, right?" Harry asked nervously. "How much time it will take?"

"Probably more than a year," Zanashi answered.

He gasped. A year? What if they would be too late? What if all his friend would be killed by Voldemort by that time? "Is there any way to do it faster?"

Zanashi shook her head and replied, "There is nothing you can do. You can only trigger the opening of a portal. Then you'll have to wait until it's ready. At least it's the only way I know."

"I hope it won't be too late," he muttered.

"Use the time to explore this world, to grow stronger." she said. "Let's get back to the space-time magic. What happens if you reverse the flow of the time in the bubble?"

Harry's eyes widened and he answered, "I'd travel back in time?"

"That's right." Zanashi answered.

"What would happen to... the younger version of me?" he asked.

"Nothing. While in the bubble there is only single instance of you. Therefore if you use this power to go back in time, you'll get a bit younger."

He was amazed. Did that mean he could go back in time and save Sirius? "But that..."

"There is a catch," she said interrupting him. "You'll need monstrous amounts of arcane power to do that. To go back a minute is almost impossible, since you would need to gather power for days to do that. But to go back a few seconds in time may save your life. It will drain you, but will give you the advantage of foreknowledge even if it's just seconds. Use it as a last resort."

Harry hung his head: no saving Sirius then.

"But there is more to space-time magic than that," she continued. "You can use it to move instantly from one location to another."

He shrugged. "I can apparate."

"Apparition is unpleasant. Furthermore it's neither instantaneous nor silent," Zanashi explained. "Teleportation using space-time magic allows you to move without any sound. The only drawback is the amount of power you'll waste. The further you teleport, the more power you'll need."

"Well, I'm ready to learn," he said.


End file.
